Cup kingpins Toulouse enjoy favourable draw

TWO groups of death, two middle of the road and two soft pools for the top seeded teams.

That was the consensus after yesterday’s draw for the 16th Heineken Cup next season.

First and third seeded Munster and Leinster, as well as their opponents, appear to have taken the pounding, champions Toulouse (2) and Leicester (4) seem to have benefited more than others, while Biarritz (5) and Cardiff Blues (6) have landed in manageable groups.

As the two recent Europeanchampions prepare for their respective ‘Groups of Death’, Ulster, the 1999 winners, will look favourably enough on their draw although it does involve a joust with Biarritz as well as games against Bath and Aironi, the newItalian franchise.

Given the outcome of games between Ulster and Bath last season – Ulster won home and away – it appears the former champions have a decent chance of making it out of pool four with the biggest obstacle clearly being Biarritz.

Champions Toulouse got the easiest draw of the top seeded teams – they will face London Wasps, Glasgow Warriors and Newport Gwent Dragons and they begin the defence of their title, won with a final 21-19 victory over Biarritz.

Guinness Premiership champions Leicester have also been handed a handy draw after they were grouped alongside Scarlets, Perpignan andTreviso.

The Tigers’ biggest threat is a Perpignan side that finished top of the Top 14 table last season, although they too could not qualify from their Heineken Cup group last term.

Scarlets endured a miserable Magners League campaign, finishing second bottom, while Italian side Treviso are one of two new sides joining the Celtic League next term.

Amlin Cup champions the Blues do have to contend with the Northampton challenge and another from Castres, but they should be better able to gauge their chances against Magners League opponents Edinburgh.

The draw was conducted using the merit-based ERC European Ranking system compiled on the qualified teams’ performances over the past four seasons in the Heineken Cup and knock-out stages of the Amlin Challenge Cup.

The 24 teams who have qualified for the 2010/11 competition were graded into four tiers of six teams each with each of the six Pools having one team from each of the four tier levels. French clubs Clermont and Racing-Metro 92 were drawn together in Pool 2 as France have seven teams in next season’s competition.