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Big day tomorrow
Glasgow Warriors will find out their European opponents when the Pool draw for next season’s Heineken Cup takes place at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium tomorrow.
ERC Chairman Jean-Pierre Lux will conduct the draw. Assisting M. Lux with the draw will be former British and Irish Lions, Wales and Llanelli Scarlets No.8 Scott Quinnell. Fellow Lion and former Wales captain Ieuan Evans, a Heineken Cup winner with Bath Rugby in 1998, will compère the event.
The draw will determine the shape of next season’s tournament, the 24 teams from six countries divided into six Pools of four teams.
Tournament rules state that seeded teams may not be drawn in the same Pool. There are six seeded sides, one from each of the participating countries.
London Wasps are the current Heineken champions, and for that reason are seeded above Guinness Premiership champions Leicester Tigers.
Magners League winners Ospreys are Wales’s seeded side, and, as winners of France’s Top 14, Stade Francais Paris are seeded. Benetton Treviso, winners of Italy’s Super 10 tournament, are seeded, as are Leinster from Ireland and Glasgow Warriors from Scotland.
In addition, teams from the same country are not permitted to be drawn in the same Pool. However, an exception has to be made for the seventh English club – Harlequins – who could face any of their domestic rivals.
It means the Ospreys will avoid Stade Francais, who were in part responsible for their early exit from this season’s competition. But Lyn Jones’s side could be drawn against Leicester Tigers, who pipped them to EDF Energy Cup glory at Twickenham earlier this year.
The Pool Draw format is as follows:
Step 1 – Six top seeded teams drawn into six separate Pools
Step 2 – Five English teams drawn into five separate Pools
Step 3 – Five French teams drawn into five separate Pools
Step 4 – Three Welsh teams drawn into three separate Pools
Step 5 – Two Irish teams drawn into two separate Pools
Step 6 – The remaining Italian and Scottish teams drawn into two separate Pools
Step 7 – Seventh English team drawn into final Pool spot
HEINEKEN CUP 2007 / 2008 QUALIFIERS
ENGLAND (7)
London Wasps (seeded)
Leicester Tigers
Gloucester Rugby
Bristol Rugby
Saracens
London Irish
Harlequins
FRANCE (6)
Stade Francais Paris (seeded)
ASM Clermont Auvergne
Toulouse
Biarritz Olympique Pays Basque
Perpignan
Bourgoin
IRELAND (3)
Leinster (seeded)
Ulster Rugby
Munster
ITALY (2)
Benetton Treviso (seeded)
Viadana
SCOTLAND (2)
Glasgow Warriors (seeded)
Edinburgh Rugby
WALES (4)
Ospreys (seeded)
Cardiff Blues
Llanelli Scarlets
Newport Gwent Dragons
Heineken Cup Season Structure 2007–2008
ROUND 1: 9 / 10 / 11 November, 2007
ROUND 2: 16 / 17 / 18 November, 2007
ROUND 3: 7 / 8 / 9 December, 2007
ROUND 4: 14 / 15 / 16 December, 2007
ROUND 5: 11 / 12 / 13 January, 2008
ROUND 6: 18 / 19 / 20 January, 2008
QUARTER-FINALS: 4 / 5 / 6 April, 2008
SEMI-FINALS: 25 / 26 / 27 April, 2008
13th HEINEKEN CUP FINAL: 24 / 25 May, 2008
This article was posted on 20-Jun-2007, 11:53 by Hugh Barrow.
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