The draw for next season’s European
Challenge Cup has pitted Top 14 newcomers
Racing-Metro 92 against former Heineken Cup winners
London Wasps.
Racing were drawn in
Pool 4, and will also face up to fellow French side
Bayonne, as well as Rugby Calvisano. The Paris club –
which has already signed Lionel Nallet, Sebastien Chabal and
Francois Steyn - has competed previously in the competition
as Racing Club de France, but not since its amalgamation
with US Metro in 2001.
Elsewhere in the draw
fellow big-spenders Toulon – who have signed England
fly-half Jonny Wilkinson - will play Saracens, Rugby Rovigo
and fellow Top 14 outfit Castres in Pool 3. That
could mean a quick return to Vicarage Road for fellow
new-signing Kris Chesney, a former Saracens stalwart who is
moving to France this summer.
Last season’s runners-up
Bourgoin are in Pool 1, along with Neil Back’s Guinness
Premiership new boys Leeds Carnegie, Italy’s Overmach Rugby
Parma and Romania’s Bucuresti Oaks – who they met in the
pool stages last year - while Montpellier are in Pool
2 with Worcester Warriors, Connacht Rugby and Olympus Rugby
XV Madrid – an a Spanish invitation team.
Bourgoin head coach
Eric Catinot believes his players have what it takes to
pose a serious challenge again next season, despite losing
the likes of Morgan Parra and Yann David. “This pool looks
very much like what we had last season when we also had an
English, an Italian and a Romanian team. I think we can come
out of the group again,” he told Bourgoin’s website.
“Leeds have just been promoted to Guinness
Premiership and we should be able to get to know them well
as Alberto Di Bernado is joining us from Leeds. We know
Bucuresti already very well from last season but I am
worried about Parma though. We have to be careful with them.
Brive lost against them last year and we know what Italians
teams are capable of on their day. We have to be vigilant.”
“We were the European Challenge Cup finalists
and this competition will be one of our goals this season.
Our ambitions will be to finish top of the pool, earn enough
points to host a quarter-final at home for our supporters
and why not a semi-final? After the defeat against
Northampton, I told the guys that when you lost a final your
objective will be to reach it again and win the title,”
added Catinot.
The
final group – Pool 5 – also includes two French sides with
newly promoted SCA Albi competing against
Montauban, Newcastle Falcons and Petrarca Rugby.
The pool draws were
made at the ERC offices in Dublin, Ireland.
ERC has also confirmed
that the ECC will take a slightly different format next
season, with three teams joining the competition from the
Heineken Cup at the quarter-final stages. The teams which
finish as third, fourth and fifth-best runners-up will now
form three of the four away sides in the last eight.
Additionally, it has been confirmed that the overall winners
of the competition will automatically qualify for the
2010/11 Heineken Cup, while also earning an additional spot
for teams from their country. If that rule had applied this
season then London Wasps would have qualified for the
Heineken Cup, as well as winners Northampton Saints.
As it turned out,
Saints took the slot which Wasps had earned due to their
league placing. Conversely France’s Brive made it into the
Heineken Cup – after finishing sixth in the league – only
after Bourgoin lost to Saints in the final.
The ECC revamp also
means that from 2010/11 Wales will only have three sides in
the competition, with the play-off between a Celtic side and
an Italian side scrapped. The Welsh had earned an extra
place via this method in three of the last four seasons, but
the play-off has now been scrapped in an effort at
“enhancing the quality and profile of the European Challenge
Cup matches”.
European Challenge
Cup fixtures:
Round 1: 8-11 October 2009
Round 2: 15-18 October 2009
Round 3: 10-13 December 2009
Round 4: 17-20 December 2009
Round 5: 14-17 January 2010
Round 6: 21-24 January 2010
Quarter-finals: 8-11 April 2010
Semi-finals: 30 April-2 May 2010
