Two Irish provinces are Bilbao-bound later this month as Ulster joined Leinster in punching their tickets to Spain, sealing a Challenge Cup final berth with a dominant home victory over Exeter.
Ulster head coach Richie Murphy was thrilled with his side's display against the Chiefs, hailing it as one of their best performances of the season.
On both sides of the ball, Ulster showed a determination and ambition. Early in the game, the home side had to withstand a ferocious Exeter onslaught, with Murphy crediting his players with a solid defensive stand.
"We want to be a team that work hard for each other and I suppose those type of actions are really satisfying from a coaching point of view to see them," he told RTÉ Sport.
"Really happy with our setpiece. I thought scrum, line-out and our maul tonight was brilliant. We stopped Exeter a couple of times when they got in. Defensively, I thought we were really good and we scored some great tries.
"So there was an all-round feel to our performance. It's probably one of the best performances we've put in all year. To do that in the semi-final when you're under loads of pressure is really satisfying from our point of view."
Murphy's side showed the ambition in attack to turn down kickable penalties and were rewarded.
"It's the way we go about our business, you know what I mean? We're a team who want to score tries. When you feel like you're on top, you want to go after it.
"One of them we didn't convert, but we're willing to take that risk because it keeps the pressure on the opposition and that's the type of team that we want to be."
Before a Challenge Cup decider against Montpellier or the Dragons, Ulster welcome the Stormers and Glasgow to Affidea Stadium on successive Friday nights, with the province currently right on the play-off bubble in the URC.
"We'll enjoy tonight and our focus will shift very quickly to the Stormers. They've obviously had a couple of weeks prepped for us, so that'll be a difficult game this week.
"But most of our players that started tonight were off last week, so they'll be bouncing into next week and we'll assess the injuries and go from there."
