Ulster

No fixture on the Ulster calendar carries the weight of the trip to Leinster.

Ulster's own record has moved in long swings rather than a straight line. The high point came in 1998-99, when the side beat US Colomiers to win the Heineken Cup. A second European final followed in 2011-12, lost to Leinster of all sides.

Between those two European finals sat a harder stretch, the team sliding from 2006 into 2010, and 2017-18 went further still. Dan McFarland took over from there. Through all of it, relegation from the top flight is one thing that has never happened to Ulster.

Home games are played at Ravenhill, known commercially as Kingspan Stadium, where the club first turned out in 1924 and where a 2014 redevelopment reshaped the ground long after that first match. None of it changes what the fixture list is built around: Leinster, and the derby neither side lets the other forget.