Champions Cup draw: Fresh format leaves little margin for error

This season’s Champions Cup means every game is make-or-break with little margin for error

Exeter Chiefs celebrate with the trophy after the European Champions Cup Final at Ashton Gate, Bristol.

If this was a Heineken Champions Cup pool draw that flummoxed many by its complexity, the challenge facing Munster in the coming months has been brought into sharp focus in the form of old foes Clermont Auvergne and Jerry Flannery’s Harlequins in their sights.

A new, one-off format for a competition expanded from 16 to 24 teams and condensed from five pools to two, represents plenty to tax the mind of a rugby family reared on six rounds of pulsating action and the make-or-break back-to-back games in December.