European Cup Overview: The Heineken European Cup resumes with the penultimate round of pool matches this weekend and all the indications are that come the last weekend, in the majority of the pools, the chase for coveted home advantage and the two best runners-up spots will go down to the wire.
It's an inevitable by-product of the cup's flawed format, and yet also an abiding part of its allure.
All told, 48 matches have been played, and yet of the 24 teams in the competition mathematically 18 of them are still in contention for the knock-out stages in April. Only the six bottom placed, winless sides have been ruled out of the equation. Everybody else has at least two wins.
Leinster and the Newcastle Falcons are the only sides with four victories out of four and so, accordingly, are the only two who know they can not only ensure themselves of qualification but also home advantage in the quarter-finals. However, both face decidedly tricky assignments away to their nearest challengers, Bath and Perpignan, on Saturday, and were they to lose there would be an almighty scrap, not only to top each pool, but also for home advantage.
Conceivably, all six pool winners could then finish with between 22 and 24 points.
Aside from Leinster and Newcastle, the other teams best placed to win their respective pools, and so compete for home advantage in the last eight, are some of the competition's traditional heavyweights: Leicester, Toulouse and Munster, along with Stade Français and Gloucester in Pool Six.
The threshold for attaining home advantage in the quarter-finals last season (the first under the bonus points system) was 23, which looks like being the mark again, but the total accrued by Edinburgh a year ago to earn the second best runners-up slot on 22 points will not be so high this time around. This is because there will not be two pools in which two teams share five wins apiece, as was the case last season.
Even so, it could be around the 19- or 20-point mark, with the likes of Wasps, Biarritz, Bath, Northampton (at a push Llanelli), Castres, Ospreys, Perpignan, the Dragons, and either Stade Français or Gloucester, all within that target entering the penultimate weekend.
Realistically, it is probably just beyond Ulster (currently on eight points) even if they were to win their final two games with bonus points, but first up they face the point of no return against Gloucester tonight.
In the quarter-finals, the top four-ranked pool winners will have home advantage against the fifth- and sixth-ranked pool winners as well as the two best runners-up in the last eight. If two sides in the same pool finish level, the deciding criteria will be the match points from the two meetings, including bonus points. If still unresolved, then it will come down to the number of tries in the two matches, followed by the best points difference in the two matches.
If clubs from different pools finish on the same number of points, the deciding criteria will be the number of tries scored in their six pool matches.
The ERC have decreed that matches in the same pool kick off simultaneously on the final weekend, but it is possible that the contenders in pools five and six could have an advantage by kicking off on the final Sunday.
