IRISH RUGBY faces the prospect of a monumental 24 hours next month when Munster and Leinster should embrace pool-defining final-round matches that not alone could decide whether they make the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup but also whether they would earn the right to home advantage at that stage of the tournament.
Two-time European champions Munster will host Northampton Saints at Thomond Park on Friday, January 22nd (8.0), in a game that’s likely to determine who will top Pool 1, assuming the two teams successfully negotiate their assignments on the previous weekend.
The Irish province must travel to Treviso for the early kick-off on Saturday, January 16th (1.35, Irish time) while Northampton host French champions Perpignan on the Sunday. The Italian side have beaten Perpignan at home in this season’s competition and only narrowly failed (21-18) when the Saints came calling last weekend.
Northampton will be entitled to a quarter of the tickets available for the 26,000-capacity Thomond Park and the England club will probably take up close to their full allocation for the probable winner-takes-all clash at the Limerick citadel. The most famous meeting between the teams was the 2000 Heineken Cup final at Twickenham when Munster flanker David Wallace scored the game’s only try but the Saints won 9-8.
The European kingpins, Leinster, are set fair for a brace of potential tea-time thrillers as they entertain Brive at the RDS in the late kick-off on Saturday, January 16th (6.0) and the following weekend head for the Madejski Stadium in Reading to not alone try to avenge their opening-round defeat to London Irish but try to prevail in a game that will decide who sits atop Pool 6.
Irish face the potentially trickier task in round five as they must travel to Parc y Scarlets (Sunday, January 17th, 12.45) to take on a Scarlets side that beat them in London last October. Given Leinster brought over 10,000 supporters to the pool game against Wasps at Twickenham last season they are unlikely to be returning any tickets in their entitlement of just over 6,000 in the 24,161-capacity Reading stadium.
This of course is not to ignore the claims of Ulster who will contend they can still emerge from Pool 4, albeit winning it will require a little help from other teams even if the Irish province triumph in both their remaining matches. They trail Stade Francais by four points after losing to the French side in the rescheduled game at Stade Jean Bouin last weekend.
Ulster host Edinburgh at Ravenhill – all three provinces and London Irish will be live on Sky Sports in the round five matches – on Friday, January 15th (8.0) before completing their pool assignment at the Recreation Ground in Bath on Saturday, January 23rd (3.45).
The broadcaster will confirm which matches will be televised on the final weekend of the pool stages following the completion of the next round. In round six the two fixtures in each pool must kick-off simultaneously. Perhaps the most difficult television scheduling dilemma in round five is Sky’s decision to show the Cardiff v Sale Sharks clash rather than the Ospreys trip to Clermont Auvergne: the latter is available to those with the red button facility.
Biarritz Olympique, beaten in the 2006 final by Munster, are odds-on favourites to claim the number one seeding for the quarter-final as they could potentially reach 28 points. In assessing the current pool leaders and the potential points totals they could realise, the Ospreys could secure 26 points, Munster, Leinster and London Irish 25, Toulouse 24 and Stade Francais 23.
