Ulster’s Heineken Cup Permutations.

The draw for the pool stages of the 2012 Heineken Cup takes place next Tuesday [7th June 2011] the time is still to be confirmed but as soon as we have it we’ll put it up in our Fixtures/Events sidebar.

This is the first time that Ireland will have four teams competing wit hconnacht joining the big boys for this particular European adventure thanks to Leinster winning the Cup this season.

The Qualifiers from each country are as follows.

England (7) – Bath Rugby, Gloucester Rugby, Harlequins, Leicester Tigers, London Irish, Northampton Saints and Saracens

France (6) – ASM Clermont Auvergne, Biarritz Olympique, Castres Olympique, Montpellier, Racing Metro 92 and Toulouse

Ireland (4) – Connacht Rugby, Leinster, Munster and Ulster Rugby

Italy (2) – Aironi Rugby and Benetton Treviso

Scotland (2) – Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors

As before the teams will be ceded in groups of 6 according to the ERC Ranking based on their performance in previous European campaigns. This gives four tiers as follows:

Tier 1: Leinster, Toulouse, Munster, Cardiff, Biarritz, Leicester

Tier 2: Northampton, Clermont, Ospreys, Bath, Harlequins, London Irish

Tier 3: Ulster, Saracens, Gloucester, Glasgow, Scarlets, Edinburgh

Tier 4: Castres . . .