By Matt Hardy
England will lead the way for representation in the Round of 16 of the Investec Champions Cup with six sides qualifying for the next stage of the world’s top club rugby competition.
Saracens from Pool 1, Harlequins and Bath from Pool 2, Northampton Saints and Exeter Chiefs from Pool 3 and Leicester Tigers from Pool 4 will progress through to the Round of 16 in April.
It means England will have the most representatives out of any nation involved in the competition while the Premiership will have more teams in the European round of 16 than both the French Top 14 and the multi-national United Rugby Championship.
France will have five teams in the next round with Bordeaux, Lyon, Toulouse, defending champions La Rochelle and Racing 92 all securing spots.
The United Rugby Championship will have five teams in the next phase, too, with South Africa’s Stormers and Bulls joining Scottish club Glasgow Warriors and Irish duo Munster and Leinster in April’s knockout round.
Sale Sharks, Bayonne, Ulster and Connacht will drop down into the second tier Challenge Cup having finished fifth in their respective pools while Bristol Bears, Stade Francais, Toulon and Cardiff will go the rest of the season without any continental rugby.
The figure of six English clubs is up on last year’s number of five, with the two previous years featuring a round of 16 also seeing five English clubs involved.
A Premiership side has not won the Champions Cup since Exeter Chiefs in 2020.
Who plays who, and where, in Champions Cup
French giants and five-time winners Toulouse qualified as top seeds, netting themselves 20 out of 20 points in the pool stages, and will take on the bottom ranked Racing 92.
Irish province Leinster will host Leicester, whom they beat at the weekend, in Dublin while Northampton will take on Munster at Franklin’s Gardens.
Saracens will again face Bordeaux at Stade Chaban-Delmas where the Begles inflicted a record defeat on the Londoners.
Harlequins, who edged out Bath to earn themselves a home tie, will face the only Scottish side in the competition Glasgow Warriors.
The Bulls, based in Pretoria, will host Lyon in their Round of 16 tie while fellow South African side the Stormers will take on double champions La Rochelle. Should either South African side make it to the semi-finals and be the allocated home team, that match will need to take place in Europe.
Exeter Chiefs, beaten by Bayonne in France yesterday, will host West Country rivals Bath in the final match of the Round of 16.
From there it is simple, the highest ranked teams will hold home advantage in the quarter-finals and the highest ranked teams in the semi-finals will have home country advantage for their last four ties.
The draw and seeding guarantees an English side – Bath or Exeter Chiefs – a spot in the last eight.
If every other English side won, five of the eight quarter-finalists would be from the Premiership.
And though teams will be simply looking at the one game ahead, eyes will be on a potential last eight match between last year’s finalists Leinster and La Rochelle.
Due to seedings, if these teams met it would be in Dublin, where Ronan O’Gara’s side beat Leinster in last season’s Champions Cup final.
What a treat.
