And Trimble, who made his first start of the tournament against England, has paid tribute to British and Irish Lions captain O’Connell for the way he fired up the troops before the battle.

"Paul is massively motivated and that inspiration filtered through to the rest of the team," said Ulsterman Trimble, who will now prepare for Ulster's Heineken Cup quarter final against Northampton.

"We wanted to get everything right technically, but we also wanted to get our physicality, our intensity, everything, right, just a real hatred.

"We were unbelievably motivated to stop them winning the Grand Slam. I always love listening to O'Connell during England week, He's always got something special to say and it always has the desired effect.

"I can't give too much away about exactly what he said and I'd be paraphrasing so I couldn't do him justice. It was very inspirational though.

"Everybody's massively motivated against England - we never get sick of beating them and that's why we enjoyed the win so much."