RONAN O’GARA would have had mixed feelings as he travelled to Paris on Friday for the evening banquet which celebrated the dream team of the Heineken Cup’s last 15 years, and his own award as the competition’s outstanding player thus far.

He’d have posed for the photos, shaken hands, accepted the applause and congratulations and mused that he should have been practising his kicking at the Stade de France that day.

Nothing about the Biarritz performance, for all its remarkable grittiness, would have dispelled the feeling in the minds of O’Gara and his fellow Munstermen that they really should have been there. Leinster could at least console themselves they had only conceded their crown to the eventual four-time winners on their own Toulouse turf, and wonder what might have been had Jonathan Sexton been fit, not to mention Luke Fitzgerald and Seán O’Brien.

Munster, of course, were hit just as hard by having Paul O’Connell ruled out for the knock-out stages (his last game being the pool win over Northampton in January) by Denis Leamy being sidelined since round four (his last game the 37-14 win away to Perpignan in December) and Donnacha Ryan, who last played in mid-February. Take two or three key men out of any team – witness Wales this season – and they invariably suffer, especially the Celts.

Yet, both teams made the semi-finals of the premier European competition (as well as the Magners League semis, with Leinster at home in next Saturday’s final) and finish the campaign sandwiching Toulouse as the first (Munster) and third (Leinster) ranked teams in Europe. It can’t be all that bad.

It says something about the Irish teams’ enduring consistency in the history of the Heineken Cup that five of their players made the dream team, along with an imported sixth, Rocky Elsom (however dubiously).

Whirlwind season though Elsom had, the judges’ discussions must surely have included a contribution from two-time winner Lawrence Dallaglio along the lines of, “eh, me anybody”? O’Gara’s accolade brooked little argument. A two-time winner, four-time finalist, all-time leading points scorer and generally outstanding performer! Hats off.

Not that O’Gara, of all people, will want to rest on his laurels just yet.

But will he and Munster, or Leinster for that matter, be in the final again any time soon? For a variety of reasons – Munster’s set-pieces and age profile, perhaps even more damaging, the departure of all but one of Leinster’s coaching staff and the demands of the 2011 World Cup – as ever that’s open to doubt. But nothing new there.

The 2010-11 Heineken Cup may be even more competitive than ever before. Take last weekend’s final weekend to the ERC season as a starting point. It was an undoubted winning one for the organisers and both competitions (and especially the Amlin Challenge Cup), for Toulouse and French rugby, the Cardiff Blues and the Scarlets (who crept in as 24th qualifier thanks to the Blues win over Toulon in the Stade Velodrome).

The weekend was notable for having its first Heineken Cup final in France for nine years, and its first Challenge Cup final since 2000. Not for the first time, the finale to the latter was a more fluid and entertaining affair, helped by having Alain Rolland as referee and an even better sense of occasion in Marseilles.

It helped that their coach, Philippe Saint-André, took the competition seriously, with Jonny Wilkinson et al, on what looks like no more than a one-off detour in the Challenge Cup en route to greener pastures in the Heineken Cup. So, only history will show whether this season’s Challenge Cup was a benchmark or, likewise, a one-off.

However, the organisers have been vindicated in giving added interest in their secondary tournament by re-routing three of the Heineken Cup pool runners-up into the Challenge Cup. At a stroke, it gave the latter tournament added impetus and interest.

As one of that trio, Cardiff (the only team to beat Toulouse and the first Welsh side to win either trophy) were the prime beneficiaries and, by extension, the Scarlets.

Cardiff’s additional four-ranking points also earned them a top-tier seeding, while the Scarlets creep in as the last of the second seeds for next seasons’ draw, which will be held in early June. As top-tier seeds, along with Toulouse, Leicester, Cardiff and Biarritz, Leinster and Munster will be hopeful of reasonable draws.

But next season’s draw will be more curious given that in addition to next Saturday’s French finalists, Clermont and Perpignan (who will be in the second and third tiers respectively), three French sides will be amongst the fourth tier. They are Castres, the nouveau riche Toulon (who have already signed Carl Hayman for next season) and mega-rich Racing Metro (who have signed Juan Hernandez). He and Francois Steyn will be dropping goals from everywhere.

The stated aim of Racing’s multi-millionaire owner Jacky Lorenzetti was to become a bigger club than Stade Français within four years. He’s already done it, which shows the scale of the task facing Michael Cheika.

The full make-up of the qualifiers is as follows – Tier One – Munster, Toulouse, Leinster, Leicester, Cardiff and Biarritz; Tier Two – Wasps, Clermont, Ospreys, Northampton, Bath and Scarlets; Tier Three – Perpignan, London Irish, Saracens, Ulster, Glasgow and Edinburgh; Tier Four – Dragons, Treviso, Castres, Toulon, Aironi Rugby (formerly Viadana) and Racing.

There’ll be one or two pools of sharks, and a handy one (most probably for Biarritz). Remembering that no group can contain two teams from the same country (bar one featuring two French sides) thus either Leinster or Munster could draw the Scarlets, one of the two Scots and an Italian, or alternatively, Clermont, Saracens and Racing.

Allowing for its complexities, it’s a wonder that ERC don’t make a televised draw, for the sake of transparency and publicity.

It’s still the most interesting draw of any year, and Ireland’s three-way interest in the two competitions up until the penultimate weekend was a highly-credible achievement. As there’s no additional cut of the cake for having a finalist or the winner, the IRFU’s share from the ERC cake should again be in the region of € 5.5 million. Not to be sniffed at.

Not to be sacrificed on the alter of an ill-conceived and populist notion either.