European Rugby Champions Cup fixtures unveiled

After what insiders described as a "tortuous process" in the carving up of matches between rival pay-per-view broadcasters BT and Sky, tournament organisers belatedly unveiled the pool fixtures for the inaugural European Rugby Champions Cup yesterday.

Three-time Heineken Cup winners Leinster will have to wait until BT's Sunday tea-time slot to complete the opening weekend when hosting Wasps at the RDS, a day after Munster travel to Barton-Upon-Irwell in Greater Manchester to play Sale Sharks (kick-off 1pm) in Anthony Foley's first foray as head coach, and Ulster play Leicester at Welford Road in BT's prime Saturday night slot at 7.45pm.

Television rights

The following weekend, in round two, Munster host last season’s beaten Heineken Cup finalists Saracens at Thomond Park on Friday, October 24th, before Ulster entertain reigning European and French champions Toulon at 1pm the following day, with Leinster again pitched into a Sunday game away to Castres.

Unsurprisingly given the failure to agree a deal for French television rights, as well as any of the putative commercial partners – in addition to being three weeks later with yesterday’s announcement – the organisers have been unable to finalise dates and times for rounds three and four, as was usually the case in the tournament’s Heineken Cup guise.

Hence supporters dare not make any travel plans beyond the opening two rounds in October.

Under the terms of the BT/Sky deal, the former have first pick on games involving English clubs for their four slots of Friday night (7.45), Saturday (3.15 and 7.45) and Sunday (5.15). Sky have thus been left with a more pan-European set of fixtures for their slots on Saturday (1pm and 5.15) and Sunday (1pm and 3.15pm).

Ironically the pool format pretty much replicates the Heineken Cup in most aspects, and so it is known, for example, that Leinster will play Harlequins in the traditional December back-to-back matches, with the return round four meeting in Dublin thereby set to be played at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, December 13th.

Mouth-watering

Munster have a couple of mouth-watering back-to-back collisions with old foes and fellow beaten semi-finalists last season, Clermont Auvergne, against whom they shared home wins in the same pivotal point in the 2008-09 campaign, as well as exchanging home wins in rounds two and five the previous season en route to their second Heineken Cup triumph.

Ulster, in a first campaign under Les Kiss, host the Scarlets in round three before travelling to Llanelli a week later, prior to their daunting trek to Toulon in the penultimate round in January and then, in a reversal of last season’s pool finale, they host Leicester at Ravenhill.

Munster go to Saracens in the penultimate round before finishing their Pool One schedule at home to Sale, while Leinster have Castres at the RDS before finishing away to Wasps.

In a change agreed by all the Six participating Unions and federations as well as the club bodies last April, in order to accommodate a French desire to give their Top 14 an uninterrupted climax, the knock-out stages of the supposed ‘blue riband’ of European rugby see the quarter-finals and semi-finals run off on the first and three weekends in April before the Twickenham final, another fortnight later, on the first weekend in May.