Leinster hoping for a favour from La Rochelle as new European format unveiled

Leinster will be hoping that La Rochelle beat Toulouse in the French Top 14 final on Saturday because if that comes to pass then the Irish province would join Ronan O’Gara’s European champions, URC winners Munster and English Premiership champions Saracens as Tier One seeds for next season’s Champions Cup.

If Toulouse win then they and not Leinster would claim that Tier One status as French Top 14 champions. La Rochelle beat Leinster at the Aviva Stadium last month for the second successive year in the final.

EPCR has confirmed that the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup competitions will revert to a multi-pool format for the 2023-2024 season.

The premier European tournament will consist of four pools of six teams while the Challenge Cup will be made up of 18 clubs in six pools of three, with a yet unnamed two teams to be invited to participate in the latter event.

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The pool draws for the 2023/24 tournaments will take place at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium next Wednesday, June 21st, and will be broadcast live on EPCRugby.tv. The tournament will be played over eight weekends leading to the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup finals at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium in London next May.

The top eight clubs in each of the URC, French Top 14 and English Premiership will participate in the tournament, each club playing either home or away against four different opponents in the pool stages.

The four Tier One clubs will head up each pool and afterwards the remaining 20 clubs will be drawn or placed into the four pools with a few provisions. There can only be two clubs from each league in a pool.

Clubs from the same URC Shield cannot be drawn in the same pool, so therefore Leinster, Munster, Ulster and Connacht (Irish Shield) will be kept apart and the same applies to the Vodacom Bulls and DHL Stormers (South Africa Shield).

There will be no matches between clubs from the same league, so for the purposes of creating the fixtures, each club will play four matches against four different clubs who are not from the same league, either home or away during the pool stage.

At the conclusion of the pool stage the four highest-ranked clubs from each pool will qualify for the Round of 16 and the clubs ranked number five in each of the pools will qualify for the knock-out stage of the Challenge Cup.

The Challenge Cup will consist of 18 clubs with eight representatives from the URC, six from the French Top 14 and two from the Premiership, plus two invited clubs which will be announced shortly. The clubs will be drawn or allocated into three pools of six with two Top 14 clubs in each pool. Clubs from the same URC Shield and from the Premiership, as well as the two invitees, will be kept apart during the draw.

Clubs will play four different opponents home or away with ‘same-league’ matches being kept to a minimum, and only impacting clubs from the URC. The four highest-ranked clubs from each of the pools will qualify for the knock-out stage.

EPCR chairman Dominic McKay said: “We are delighted to announce the new formats for the 2023/24 season. We’ve been working hard with our leagues and key stakeholders to ensure we have the right competition structures.

“We will continue to work with our stakeholders to look at ways in which we can improve both tournaments, an objective which is at the heart of our strategy and commitment to fans, clubs and partners.”

Champions Cup qualifiers

URC: Munster, DHL Stormers, Leinster, Ulster, Glasgow Warriors, Vodacom Bulls, Connacht, Cardiff.

English Premiership: Saracens, Sale Sharks, Leicester Tigers, Northampton Saints, Harlequins, Exeter Chiefs, Bath Rugby, Bristol Bears.

French Top 14: La Rochelle, Toulouse, Racing 92, Bordeaux-Bègles, Lyon, Stade Francais, Toulon, Bayonne.

Challenge Cup qualifiers

URC: Cell C Sharks, Emirates Lions, Benetton, Edinburgh, Ospreys, Scarlets, Dragons, Zebre Parma.

English Premiership: Gloucester, Newcastle Falcons. Two more clubs to be invited.

French Top 14: Castres Olympique, Clermont Auvergne, Montpellier, Pau, Perpignan, Oyonnax.

2023/24 fixture weekends

Round 1: December 8th-10th

Round 2: December 15th-17

Round 3: January 12th-14th

Round 4: January 19th-21st

Round of 16: April 5th-7th

Quarter-finals: April 12th-14th

Semi-finals: May 3rd-5th

EPCR Challenge Cup final: Friday, May 24th, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

Champions Cup final: Saturday, May 25th, 2024, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium