Fair play.

It’s been a pretty incredible year for Irish Rugby by all accounts. It began with a clean sweep in the November internationals, before Joe Schmidt’s men completed an historic Six Nations Grand Slam with victory over England at Twickenham.

To top it all off – Leinster became champions of Europe on Saturday, and we’re guaranteed at one Irish province in this year’s PRO14 final with Munster set to battle Leinster at the RDS this weekend.

While it hasn’t been the best of seasons for Ulster and Connacht – at the end of the day, it’s been a squad effort. Would Ireland have won a Grand Slam without the likes of Bundee Aki, Jacob Stockdale or skipper Rory Best. Not a chance.

That being said, Joe Schmidt and Ireland honoured a number of players that missed out receiving their Grand Slam medals back in March at last night’s Rugby Players Ireland awards.

Rather than just hand the lads their medals behind the scenes – a number of players were given their moment at last night’s awards as they were invited on stage for a ceremony and given their medals by the boss himself.

The likes of Ian Keatley, Ultan Dillane, Dave Kilcoyne, Josh van der Flier, Luke McGrath and Chris Farrell were all on hand. A wonderful gesture and a proud moment.