A win for already-qualified Leinster at Benetton on Saturday will see the four-time champions finish the pool stage as the No 1-ranked club.

Peter Jackson gets over the gain line, behind the headline.

English Premiership clubs are set for a windfall of close to £500,000 (€575,000) after it was decided to distribute Saracens' fine for salary cap breaches.

The Guinness PRO14 rarely fares well when observers from across the Irish Sea compare it to their own Gallagher Premiership.

The Champions Cup is supposed to be the pinnacle for professional club rugby in Europe.

Connacht’s survival hopes in the Heineken Champions Cup may depend on a superb home record which has seen them lose just one of 14 games at the Sportsground in Europe in the past five years.

Additional seating will be installed at Thomond Park in anticipation of a sell-out crowd for Saturday's Champions Cup game against Saracens.

Johan van Graan has challenged Munster’s batch of young and inexperienced scrum-halves to step into the void left by the departing Alby Mathewson and apply the pressure on Conor Murray for the province’s No.9 jersey.

Stuart Lancaster believes the disappointment felt by Ireland’s World Cup contingent can spur the four provinces to memorable heights in Europe, just as it did their English counterparts four years ago.

Not for the first time, Europe has proved the perfect antidote for pining Irish players looking for solace after the woes of an underwhelming World Cup campaign.

Exeter Chiefs got their Champions Cup campaign off to a winning start with a 31-12 bonus point victory over La Rochelle at the Stade Marcel-Deflandre.

This may be a pool of death Munster are facing into as the 25th Heineken Champions Cup campaign gets underway this weekend but the fixture schedule has at least handed Johann van Graan’s side the most palatable of introductions, albeit away, with a trip to off-form Ospreys.

Head coach Dave Rennie will almost certainly leave Glasgow Warriors at the end of this season, most likely to take charge of Australia, although he has also been linked with the New Zealand and Italy jobs. His legacy in Scotland will depend almost entirely on how his team fares in this European Champions Cup campaign, which kicks-off when Sale Sharks visit Scotstoun tomorrow afternoon.

Whatever about losing the World Cup final, English rugby had every right to be feeling good about itself and the future of the game after a successful tournament in Japan — until, of course, they found themselves with a PR nightmare on their hands with revelations about Saracens and their manipulation of the Premiership salary cap.

Simon Lewis previews the 20 teams aiming for glory as the Champions Cup kicks off this weekend.

Head coach Dave Rennie will almost certainly leave Glasgow Warriors at the end of this season, most likely to take charge of Australia, although he has also been linked with the New Zealand and Italy jobs. His legacy in Scotland will depend almost entirely on how his team fairs in this European Champions Cup campaign, which kicks-off when Sale Sharks visit Scotstoun Saturday afternoon.

La Rochelle have lost on all 16 of their visits to Clermont in the club's history.

It was four summers ago that Tommy O’Donnell feared the worst for his playing career, never mind his future at Test level.

Munster’s new-look brains trust will have little time to brace for their first intensive exam on the back of a Heineken Champions Cup draw in Lausanne yesterday which did the province few favours.

Munster have been left holding the short straw for next season's Heineken Champions Cup with the two-time champions plunged into the clichéd 'Pool of Death' after Wednesday's draw in Lausanne.

Munster received a tough draw against reigning champions Saracens in next season's Champions Cup pool stages.

Tom Willis’ last-minute try ruined the Ireland Under-20s’ final quarter fightback as England won a titanic play-off 30-23 in awful underfoot conditions in Rosario.

Tom Willis’ last-minute try ruined the Ireland Under-20s’ final quarter fight-back as England won a titanic World Rugby U-20 Championship play-off 30-23 in awful underfoot conditions in Rosario.

Leo Cullen vented his anger last week at what he perceived as suggestions in some media outlets that Jonathan Sexton had been ‘dropped’ for the semi-final win over Munster. He need not have bothered as Sexton’s selection for today’s decider was always going to refute such spin.

As British parliamentarians are proving with almost daily inefficiency, leaving Europe can be complicated but as far as Stuart Hogg is concerned, the swift and summary elimination of Glasgow Warriors earlier this season has been the best thing that could have happened to his club.

Ever get that feeling that the stars are aligning for some special purpose?

Donal Lenihan runs the rule over the Heineken Cup semi-finalists

The sound of Irishmen baying for blood isn’t going to bother Saracens in the slightest this weekend.

Two tries from Keith Earls and a brilliant defensive effort kept Edinburgh at bay and helped Munster book a place in the Heineken Champions Cup semi-finals in a close-fought tussle at Murrayfield on Saturday.

Munster touched down in the Scottish capital yesterday ready to make their European pedigree tell against a talented, up-and-coming team lacking their experience of closing out big games such as today’s Heineken Champions Cup quarter-final.

Head coach Richard Cockerill has reinstalled hooker and captain Stuart McInally to the side in one of four changes to the starting line-up which defeated Leinster in last week’s round of the PRO14.

A stranger perusing the team sheets in advance of this afternoon’s opening Champions Cup quarter-final might be forgiven for thinking that a Currie Cup fixture has been transported from Cape Town to Edinburgh.

Forewarned is forearmed, as the proverb goes. Chris Farrell’s one-week release from Ireland camp back to Munster during the Six Nations has given the centre confidence that he and his fellow internationals will be on the same page with their provincial teammates by kick-off time at Murrayfield on Saturday.

The province began training for the trip to Murrayfield on Monday, with their full squad reunited at their High Performance Centre in Limerick for the first time following Ireland’s Six Nations campaign

Wipe the slate clean and move on to the next job. That is the way Johann van Graan, like many head coaches, operates but as his Munster side transitions into this European knockout rugby week, his mantra of forgetting the past and resetting to zero on a Monday has never seemed so apt.

Johann van Graan had bad news for the majority of Munster players who earned a bonus-point Guinness PRO14 victory over Zebre at Thomond Park on Saturday night, he had already decided on his starting line-up for this weekend’s European quarter-final trip to Edinburgh.

Ireland boss Joe Schmidt is hopeful Tadhg Beirne could return to fitness in time to face Italy in Rome when the defending champions resume their Guinness Six Nations campaign in 13 days.

Some of the reaction to Ireland’s defeat by England last weekend has been crazy, writes Donal Lenihan.

Ulster's reward for making a first European Cup quarter-final in eight years may yet be a trip to Dublin to face Leinster's reigning champions.

Here's your lunchtime bulletin.

You can hear the excitement in Ian Whitten’s voice as he described the feeling of being in an Exeter Chiefs back-line when everything comes together. The bad news for Munster is that the Ulsterman experienced that buzz only last weekend as the Chiefs put Castres to the sword to set up tomorrow’s pivotal Heineken Champions Cup pool finale at Thomond Park.

Peter Jackson gets over the gain line, behind the headline.

One of the more remarkable points to consider about Munster’s upturn in attacking form over the last three weeks is the lack of gametime the province’s inside backs have had together.

Munster skipper Peter O’Mahony will be given “every opportunity” to pass fit for this Saturday’s crunch Heineken Champions Cup pool showdown with Exeter Chiefs, head coach Johann van Graan said on Monday.