Not much margin for error

HEINEKEN CUP POOLS OVERVIEW:THE SYSTEM is not without its flaws or maddening complexities, and it doesn't even ensure the best eight teams reach the quarter-finals, yet that's all part of the fun and games. Calculators at the ready then, it's that time of the season again.

The permutations entering the final two pool rounds of the Heineken Cup are usually endless and the next fortnight promises to be no different. In a new development, the third, fourth and fifth best runners-up in the Heineken Cup will be re-routed to away quarter-finals in the Amlin Challenge Cup, where only the pool winners will advance to the last eight.

As things stand, 16 teams can still qualify for the last eight of the premier European competition, though realistically that can be reduced to 14, and perhaps even 11. For the two Irish heavyweights who have won three of the past four Cups, Leinster and Munster, despite rusty opening weekend losses to English teams, each has their destiny in their own hands.

For them, successive wins over the last two weekends will guarantee qualification, and with a good chance of a home tie. In fact, were Leinster and Munster to manage successive bonus-point wins, they would be assured of lucrative and highly-advantageous home quarter-finals.

However, most of the defining games look destined for the final round of matches, and the likelihood remains both will be involved in momentous, winner-takes-all Anglo-Irish group summit meetings next weekend. In that scenario, defeats for both could see them scrambling with each other for the second best runner’s-up slot and last place in the final eight.

Munster’s bonus-point win in Perpignan last time out has changed the landscape in Pool One entirely. It takes the heat out of their need to win with a bonus point in Treviso which, given the Italians’ 9-8 home win over Perpignan and 21-18 defeat to Northampton, is no bad thing.

Tony McGahan has had a frustratingly stop-start, injury plagued season to deal with, and his backrow resources are down to the bare bones, but any kind of win in Italy tomorrow will, in time-honoured fashion, lead to a vengeful showdown with English opponents on the final weekend for the fifth time in eight years.

Reading’s win over hapless Liverpool at Anfield on Wednesday night confirms that London Irish were right to switch this match to Twickenham as soon as they did. Although Irish have plenty of history at Twickenham themselves, and nearly beat Toulouse there in the semi-finals two seasons ago, so too do Leinster.

Were both London Irish and Leinster to win with bonus points this weekend, the odds favour both of them going through, given their healthy try counts, although the margins will be tight. The losers in Twickenham are likely to go through unless Munster finish runners-up in Pool One.