Double French for Edinburgh
Glasgow will face the might of two-time winners Saracens in Pool 3 of the Heineken Champions Cup, while Edinburgh will be up against two strong French sides, Toulon and Vern Cotter’s Montpellier, in Pool 5.
The draw, made yesterday at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, featured both Scottish pro teams for the first time since 2013/14 after both appeared in the Guinness Pro14 play-offs at the tail end of last season.
And, for newly re-branded Edinburgh Rugby it was a case of be careful what you wish for on their return to Europe’s top table when they drew the two French giants, as well as Newcastle Falcons.
The English side are much improved under coach Dean Richards but at least the travel will be straightforward.
Edinburgh will hope that a sizeable contingent of supporters make the short hop from the capital to Newcastle.
As Cockerill pointed out towards the end of last season, qualifying for the Heineken Cup is much more difficult when you are in the Heineken Cup given the inevitable attrition involved when playing against the best in Europe rather than the somewhat easier ride afforded to teams in the second-tier Challenge Cup.
Glasgow’s pool rivals Saracens, beat the Warriors on the only occasion they made it into the quarter-finals of the competition in 2016/17.
However, coach Dave Rennie will be relieved to have avoided a so called “pool of death”, which Glasgow were in last season, simply because there is no such pool following this year’s draw. The big names are reasonably evenly spread throughout the groups rather than clustered in one or two of them, although you wouldn’t want to bet your mortgage on who will top Pool 2 which includes French Top 14 winners Castres, Premiership finalists Exeter Chiefs and perennial contenders Munster, with Gloucester looking like also-rans in such exalted company.
Despite Saracens posing their own unique problems for Glasgow, the others sides in Pool 3, Lyon and the Cardiff Blues, are rather less intimidating. The Blues were a much-improved team last year and won the Challenge Cup but they have since lost coach Danny Wilson who has joined Gregor Townsend’s Scotland set-up rather than joining Wasps as he had previously agreed to do.
“The groups are always tough because you’re playing the elite teams in Europe,” Glasgow assistant coach Kenny Murray told Glasgowwarriors.org.
“I think we have quite a good group, with an English and French side, along with a Guinness Pro14 team as well.
“We’ve played Saracens recently and we know how tough that will be but they are certainly not unbeatable and that will be a good test for us.
“We’ve performed well against Cardiff Blues in recent times and managed to get some good wins against them but they are a team we have huge respect for.
“Lyon will be a bit of an unknown quantity to us as we’ve not played them in Europe before. They will be an interesting one to preview and withthembeingatop 14 semi-finalist they will be a strong side.” As Murray suggests, Lyon are an intriguing prospect. They beat Toulon in the Top 14 quarter-finals a few weeks back, but only on tries scored after the two teams were tied 19-19 after extra time.
“The Wolves” then lost 40-14 to Montpellier in the semifinal, despite the game being played in Lyon. Glasgow will think that, if they can pick up points from Saracens in the home tie at Scotstoun, they will have a fighting chance of making the play-offs.
Last season’s winners Leinster, only the second club in history to win four European Cups, will be favourites to top Pool 1 and last year’s losing finalists Racing 92, find themselves in Pool 4 alongside Scarlets, Leicester Tigers and Ulster, who only scraped in after winning a play-off against the Ospreys.
The opening round of fixtures will take place on the weekend of 12/13/14 October, with the Heineken Cup final at Newcastle United’s St James’ Park on 11 May next year.