Best, Wood or Flannery? O’Kelly or O’Connell? ROG or Sexton? These are big decisions folks and we need help making them.
A new era of European Rugby gets underway with the beginning of the European Rugby Champions Cup this weekend and if the Irish sides can be as successful going forward as they have been in the recent past then there are exciting times ahead for rugby fans in this country.
Before we embark on the new era, we’ve decided to reflect on Irish sides’ glorious past in European competition and have set about trying to pick a team of the best Irish players to have played in the Heineken Cup from 1995-2013.
Considering that the Irish provinces won the trophy in six out of the 19 seasons the Heineken Cup was in existence, there are any amount of contenders for spots on a hypothetical XV and, realising that our own selection was bound to provoke plenty of heated debate, we decided to issue a cry of help to you, our readers, to help us determine the 15 men worthy of a starting spot.
In order to cast your vote, simply tweet us your starting XV (surnames only to save characters) along with the hashtag #IrelandHCupXV and we’ll tally up the votes to come up with an all-Irish European Dream Team selected by JOE readers.
At this point, we should remind you that our criteria excludes players like Rocky Elsom and Doug Howlett, who made such a huge contribution for Irish provinces but who were never eligible to play for the national side.
Want to give it a try? Well, there’s no time like the present, so tweet your team using the #IrelandHCupXV, let the selection headaches begin and we’ll be back with the big reveal a little later this week.
Brought to you by Heineken, celebrating 20 years supporting European Club Rugby
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