And then there were 14, or at a pinch 15. The Heineken Cup's format is designed to keep as many teams alive as possible and, with only one round of games remaining, over half the 24 contestants still nurture varying hopes of reaching the quarter-finals the weekend after next.

However, most of them are competing for only three places for, in effect, five teams are already there, including both Swansea and Stade Francais, whose clash will decide the pecking order in Pool Two, with the winners obtaining a home quarter-final and the losers qualifying as the best-ranked pool runner-up.

Indeed, even the three known pool winners, Munster, Cardiff and Leicester, have still the minor matter of ensuring home quarterfinals next weekend.

Pool One hinges on the Biarritz-Leinster shoot-out, and there's a three-way battle at the top of Pool Five between Gloucester, Colomiers and Llanelli, from where the second-best runner-up may emerge, but Pontypridd and Pau in Pool Six, Saracens and to a lesser extent Bath and Edinburgh Reivers are still in contention.

To facilitate clarity, all will be decided by Saturday evening, as the only dead rubber is Sunday's meeting of Wasps and whipping boys L'Aquila.

Should Munster beat Castres in Musgrave Park they are assured of a home quarter-final the following Saturday as one of the top four ranked pool winners.

For Leinster, the situation is anything but clear-cut. They could even obtain a home quarter-final, but the odds must be against them making the last eight now.

Effectively, they have to beat Biarritz away next Saturday evening to ensure they top Pool One, thereby guaranteeing a place in the quarter-finals.

Biarritz's defeat at Northampton didn't change the equation (apart from meaning that, in the unlikely event of a second successive draw, Leinster would top the pool and go through).

However, it did make Leinster's failure to close out their big leads to Edinburgh Reivers on Friday all the more galling.

Had they won, they would have gone to Biarritz comforted in the knowledge that barring a defeat by at least four tries, they would have topped the pool due to their four tries to nil win in the original meeting at Donnybrook. Instead, they now have to win.

Quite why Edinburgh Reivers opted for an equalising injury-time penalty with the last kick remains a mystery.

With Leinster almost out on their feet and a try more than possible, the draw effectively puts them out of contention barring a mathematically freakish qualification for the last eight as the second-best pool runner-up.