Munster and Gloucester on collision course again

MUNSTER and Gloucester are set to renew acquaintances in next season’s Heineken Cup, setting the English side up for a revenge mission after the Irishmen unbelievably dumped them out of the competition at Thomond Park last January.

The sides had two epic Pool 2 clashes in last season’s Heineken Cup and will now clash again in the 2003/4 tournament, which kicks-off on the weekend of 5, 6 and 7 December. They are joined in Pool 5 by Italian champions Benetton Treviso and Bourgoin.

Leinster are drawn with Biarritz Olympique, Sale Sharks and the Cardiff region in Pool 3, while Ulster have the toughest draw of the Irish sides, going up against the French champions (either Stade Francais or Toulouse), Leicester Tigers, the Ebbw Vale/Newport region.

However, the biggest interest will focus on Munster and Gloucester after their titanic struggles last season.

The first of their 2002/3 matches, which Gloucester won 35-16 at Kingsholm, attracted a phenomenal BBC Grandstand audience of 3.3m. The second encounter, which Munster won 33-6 at Thomond Park, has gone down in Irish folklore as the “Miracle Match.”

Munster needed to win by 27 clear points on the day, something which was universally acknowledged as an impossible task, but they managed to do just that, winning 33-6, to dump Nigel Melville’s disbelieving side out of the competition.

Speaking about next season’s draw last night, Brian Hickey, Munster’s assistant coach, predicted that it would be an “interesting re-match” but he said it was very early days to predict how it might pan out.

“Obviously anyone who has finished second in the English championship is going to be very strong and their heavy loss to Wasps last weekend was perhaps an unfair reflection on Gloucester.

“I think that had more to do with the fact that Gloucester had not played for three weeks in the build up to that game, while Wasps had a few games and were sharper. But it will be different in December.

“Overall it could be said, on the face of it, that it looks like an easier draw than last year, but we don’t know a lot at this stage about Bourgoin and it is very early to say what sort of shape they might be in come December.

“Last year it was felt that as Perpignan did not have a lot of internationals, they might be beaten easily, but that was certainly not the case and they eventually made the final,” Hickey said.