Exiles given incentive of 'home' semi-final

If London Irish do not end this season as England's knock-out champions, they never will. The Exiles play a newly-christened Powergen Cup quarter-final against Gloucester at the Madejski Stadium in Reading on Sunday, and if they survive that tie, they will have home advantage in the last four, irrespective of what happens in next week's semi-final draw.

If London Irish do not end this season as England's knock-out champions, they never will. The Exiles play a newly-christened Powergen Cup quarter-final against Gloucester at the Madejski Stadium in Reading on Sunday, and if they survive that tie, they will have home advantage in the last four, irrespective of what happens in next week's semi-final draw.

Extraordinarily, the Rugby Football Union has committed itself to running the two semis back-to-back at the Madejski, where London Irish have played their games since abandoning their ground-share arrangement with Harlequins a couple of seasons ago. There is undeniably an element of logic to the union's decision: of all the Premiership grounds, the Madejski is best equipped for a venture of this nature, as was demonstrated when the Wasps-Bristol and Northampton-London Irish ties were held on a single afternoon in April 2000. That, however, was before London Irish took up residence in the Thames Valley.

Brendan Venter's side are now a formidable proposition at the Madejski – Leicester's hard-earned Premiership win there last month was the Exiles' fourth defeat there in 26 outings – and they would fancy their chances of attracting 10,000 of their own supporters to a sell-out semi-final crowd of 24,200 on 9 March.

Given that Gloucester have not made a priority of the cup competition – Philippe Saint-André, their coach, selected what amounted to a second-string side for the match at Bristol in the last round, and was fairly startled when the result went his way – the Irish appear to be quids in. They have never won an English knock-out cup in any of its many manifestations; they lost their one final to a Leicester side captained by Peter Wheeler in 1980. The gods are with them this time, for sure.

Bath, who once collected domestic knock-out titles for a pastime, are already out of this season's tournament (beaten by London Irish). But they would rather be contesting the sudden-death stage of the Heineken Cup, and their quarter-final with Llanelli, which would attract a 15,000 gate if 15,000 people could be sardined into a Recreation Ground venue that holds 8,200 at a push, will be played on Saturday week. England's other European contenders, holders Leicester, will take on Leinster at Welford Road on Sunday 27 January, six days before umpteen Tigers are due to face Scotland at Murrayfield in the first match of the Six Nations. Clive Woodward, the red rose manager, will be less than delighted with the fixture planners.

Until they went pear-shaped at Wasps 10 days ago, Ulster looked a banker bet for a Heineken Cup quarter-final slot. Their failure at the death has hit them hard, but they can at least look forward to Warren Brosnihan's arrival in Belfast at the beginning of March. The Springbok loose forward has signed a two-year deal at Ravenhill after quitting one of South Africa's leading Super 12 teams, Natal Sharks.

* Heineken Cup organisers are to investigate complaints from Munster and Castres following Saturday's Pool Four game in France. Munster claim Peter Clohessy was bitten by a Castres player while the home side, who won 21-13, claim their forward Ismaela Lassissi was subject to racist comments.