It will be a case of London Calling when the 17th Heineken Cup final gets under way at Twickenham Stadium on Saturday, 19 May next, and the road to the English capital will be mapped out for all to see when the draw for the Heineken Cup semi-finals is made on Sunday evening.
When the final two of the 72 Pool matches conclude at Murrayfield and Cardiff City Stadium on Sunday, the line-up for the quarter-finals will be complete with the six Pool winners and the two best runners-up making up the eight clubs in the knock-out stages. The quarter-final line-up pits the No 1 seeds against the No 8 seed, 2 v 7, 3 v 6 and 4 v 5.
Those clubs confirmed as quarter-finalists to date are: Pool 1- Munster Rugby (winners); Pool 3 – Leinster Rugby (winners); Pool 4 – ASM Clermont Auvergne (winners); Pool 6 – Toulouse (winners).
The Heineken Cup semi-final draw will take place at approximately 17.25 (UK / Irish time) and will be followed by the draw for the Amlin Challenge Cup with both being streamed live on www.ercrugby.com and broadcast live on Sky Sports and on Canal Groupe’s infosport + channel.
The draws will decide who the winners of each quarter-final will meet in the semi-finals. In the case of the Heineken Cup, where semi-finals are played at venues designated by ERC, the draw will also decide which clubs will have ‘home country’ advantage, where the semi-finalists are from different countries.
In the Amlin Challenge Cup, the semi-finals are played as home matches and the draw will decide which clubs will have a home semi-final, should they win their respective quarter-final.
With only a three week window between the quarter-finals and the semi-finals the early staging of the draw allows ERC to select potential semi-final venues in advance of the quarter-finals and for the Clubs and ERC to begin preparations and planning to maximise the semi-final fixtures.