Six Irish players make Midi Olympique team of the tournament

Six Irish players have been named in French rugby paper Midi Olympique's Champions Cup team of the tournament.

Saracens won this year's competition and their third title in the last four years with an impressive comeback win over Leinster in Newcastle on Saturday. The champions earned four selections with Billy Vunipola, Mako Vunipola, Will Skelton and European Player of the Year Alex Goode all receiving nominations while for Leinster Sean Cronin, Tadhg Furlong and Scott Fardy were all named. Meanwhile Munster earned three selections with Peter O'Mahony, Tadhg Beirne and Joey Carbery receiving a place in the team while for Ulster Jacob Stockdale was also named after finishing the tournament as joint top scorer with six tries in seven games. https://twitter.com/midi_olympique/status/1127918656065888256 Leinster head coach Leo Cullen said that his side must now move on after a tough loss and shift their attention towards this weekend's PRO14 semi-final with Munster.

“We’re gutted. We’d love to be sitting here with a more positive outcome but full credit to the players, I think the way they’ve applied themselves, the way everyone has worked behind the scenes to make sure we’re in good shape at this stage of the season. “We just need to dust ourselves off now. We can talk about so many different parts of the game. We need to move on as quickly as possible because we have a huge game against Munster next Saturday.”

Leinster confirmed that Jamison Gibson-Park is due to return to rugby training this week after a hamstring injury and is due to be available for selection while Josh van der Flier is also due to return to rugby training this week and be available for Saturday’s game at the RDS Arena.