Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Champions Cup winners La Rochelle drawn with Premiership and URC semi-finalists

Gregory Alldritt lifts the trophy for La Rochelle (Photo by PA)

Reigning Heineken Champions Cup winners La Rochelle are set to face Gallagher Premiership semi-finalists Northampton Saints and United Rugby Championship semi-finalists Ulster in the 2022/23 instalment of the competition.

ADVERTISEMENT

Despite being crowned European champions last season, Ronan O’Gara’s side were a tier three side in the draw as they crashed out of the Top 14 in the quarter-finals. That meant they were drawn with tier two outfits, who were all the losing semi-finalists of the Premiership, URC and Top 14.

Meanwhile, Premiership winners Leicester Tigers will face ASM Clermont Auvergne and the Ospreys in the pool stages, URC winners the Stormers will face ASM Clermont Auvergne and London Irish, while newly crowned Top 14 winners Montpellier will face London Irish and the Ospreys. This is because the winners of each competition were placed in tier one, meaning they are matched up with tier four sides, who were the sides that finished seventh and eight in their respective leagues (although ninth place Ospreys made it from the URC instead of Glasgow Warriors as they were the highest placed Welsh side).

Video Spacer

Freddie Burns- Leicester’s drop-goal hero | RugbyPass Offload | Episode 39

Video Spacer

Freddie Burns- Leicester’s drop-goal hero | RugbyPass Offload | Episode 39

Losing finalists in each competition were also placed in tier one alongside the champions, which means Saracens will face Challenge Cup winners Lyon and Edinburgh, Castres will face 2020 European champions Exeter Chiefs and Edinburgh, and the Bulls will face Lyon and Exeter.

Losing Champions Cup finalists Leinster will come up against Racing 92 and Gloucester, while five time champions Toulouse are set to have a repeat of their epic quarter-final clash with Munster (which was decided by a penalty shootout), as well as fixtures against Sale Sharks.

Losing Premiership semi-finalists Harlequins have perhaps got the toughest fixture list of all, as they will play three time runners-up Racing 92 and South Africa’s Sharks, who have been on a recruitment drive this year.

Teams will play each other home and away, with the top eight teams from each pool progressing to the round of 16. Round one will get underway in December, with the final on May 20 2023 at the Aviva Stadium.

ADVERTISEMENT

This is the draw:

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 2 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

286 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Cheslin Kolbe backed to end 16-year wait Cheslin Kolbe backed to end 16-year wait
Search