La Rochelle and Leinster will meet for a fourth successive season in the Champions Cup following Wednesday’s draw in London with the Irish province still chasing a first victory over Ronan O’Gara’s two-time and the defending European champions. The draw has been kinder, relatively speaking, to United Rugby Championship (URC) champions Munster, Ulster and Connacht.
Leinster have lost the last two finals to the French club, in Marseille (2022) and last month, an agonising one-point defeat, 27-26, at the Aviva Stadium. The Irish province were previously beaten by La Rochelle in a European semi-final (2021) at the Stade Marcel Deflandre.
The tournament reverts to a multi-pool format, four pools with six teams in each, with the proviso that there could be no more than two teams from each league, URC, Top 14 and Gallagher Premiership in a pool, and that there would be no fixtures between clubs from the same league.
Teams will play four fixtures against clubs from the other leagues, two at home and two away, determined on a random basis by what EPCR declare on their official missive “an algorithm that takes into consideration the pool draw, domestic calendar restrictions, local calendar restrictions and broadcaster requirements.” Those dates, times and broadcast details will be agreed and confirmed next month.
Other than the respective champions, La Rochelle (Champions Cup), Munster (URC), Toulouse (Top 14) and Saracens (English Premiership) being drawn in different pools there is no seeding when it comes fixture scheduling, so for example La Rochelle don’t get any material benefit as champions, according to tournament organisers.
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Leo Cullen’s charges face the most difficult set of European fixtures from an Irish perspective having been placed in Pool Four alongside European champions La Rochelle, English Premiership beaten finalists Sale Sharks, Leicester Tigers, who finished third domestically, and whom Leinster beaten in the last two quarter-finals, 23-14 at Welford Road (2022) and 55-24 in Dublin.
Leinster will also face Stade Francais, who finished fourth in the French Top 14, the only outlier which two the Irish province will have at home and conversely where they will travel for the other two matches.
Munster head coach Graham Rowntree will be pretty satisfied with the province’s set of fixtures as they will face Champions Cup first-timers Bayonne, who finished eighth in the Top 14.
They will also take on Toulon (seventh, Top 14), the three-time former European champions showing signs that they are heading in the right direction. Munster will face the 2020 Champions Cup winners Exeter Chiefs but head coach Rob Baxter is in the throes of rebuilding a squad that has been hit by high profile departures.
Northampton Saints have signed a number of London Irish players including Tom Pearson, but Munster will enjoy the prospect of taking on the side that they beat twice at last season’s pool stage.
Dan McFarland’s Ulster will face the French Top 14 champions Toulouse, with whom they had two titanic tussles in the 2021-2022 season. The Irish province won 26-20 in Le Stadium in the first leg of the Round of 16 only for Ugo Mola’s side to pinch a 30-23 win in Belfast in the return game and advance by a single point.
Ulster will also face Racing 92, who will be under new head coach Stuart Lancaster, Bath and Harlequins. Connacht, with Pete Wilkins having taken over as head coach from Andy Friend, will meet English champions Saracens, a Bristol Bears club led by their former coach Pat Lam, and the club that finished third in last season’s French Top 14, Lyon.
The top four teams in each pool will go through to the Round of 16 – teams will be ranked 1-16 based on their finishing positions in the pools and these will determine the draw for the knock-out stages through to the semi-finals – with the fifth-placed teams dropping down to the Challenge Cup. The two European finals will take place at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium next May.
2023/24 Champions Cup pools
Pool 1: Saracens, Union Bordeaux-Bègles, Vodacom Bulls, Bristol Bears, Connacht, Lyon
Pool 2: Toulouse, Cardiff, Bath, Racing 92, Harlequins, Ulster
Pool 3: Munster, Bayonne, Glasgow Warriors, Exeter Chiefs, Toulon, Northampton Saints
Pool 4: La Rochelle, Stade Français, Leicester Tigers, DHL Stormers, Leinster, Sale Sharks
2023/24 Challenge Cup
Pool 1: Invitee 1, Section Paloise, Dragons, Zebre Parma, Oyonnax, Cell C Sharks
Pool 2: Ospreys, USAP, Newcastle Falcons, Emirates Lions, Montpellier, Benetton
Pool 3: Edinburgh, Castres Olympique, Clermont Auvergne, Invitee 2, Gloucester, Scarlets
Fixture weekends
Round 1: December 8th-10th
Round 2: December 15th-17th
Round 3: January 12th-14th
Round 4: January 19th-21st
Round of 16: April 5th-7th
Quarter-finals: April 12th-14th
Semi-finals: May 3rd-5th
EPCR Challenge Cup final: Friday, May 24th, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Champions Cup final: Saturday, May 25th, 2024, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
