**You know it’s Christmas time when the excitement and exhilarating action of a Guinness PRO14 derby is here.** There really is nothing quite like the fixtures in the Championship between those closest rivals, and you can guarantee there won’t be much festive cheer on show at all. Every year rugby fans are treated to quality action with this year’s festive offering highly anticipated and set not to disappoint. And, alongside a Boxing Day four-piece of fixtures, provincial rivals Connacht and Ulster will do battle on December 27 although Andy Friend’s side will be hoping for better than the team achieved when the two sides met in April 2014. Then, despite being ravaged by injuries and having gone out of Europe in disappointing fashion days earlier, Mark Anscombe's Ulster ran riot in an eight-try demolition of Connacht. **Ulster 58-12 Connacht, Kingspan Stadium – April 11, 2014** Ulster took their anger out in devastating fashion in this game, despite being heavily depleted.
