Heineken Cup: The big draw

Nothing, not even the mass migration of world-class talent from south to north, divides rugby's hemispheres quite like the Heineken Cup, the 14th instalment of which begins with matches in the rival bear pits of Limerick and Perpignan on Friday night. To those European clubs – or provinces, or regions, or super-districts, depending on local arrangements – who participate in the tournament, it is the union code's version of the crown jewels, the holy grail and the crock of gold at the end of the rainbow, rolled into one. To those who watch it from the other side of the Equator, it has never been all it's cracked up to be.

Needless to say, this characteristically dismissive attitude has not stopped southern hemisphere coaches attempting to win the damned thing. Lots of them have tried – John Connolly and Pat Howard, Wayne Smith and Nick Mallett, Francois Pienaar and Marcelo Loffreda – but only one has made it happen for himself: Warren Gatland, the former All Black hooker currently in charge of Wales, who secured the title with Wasps. And even Gatland needed a little help from the nonchalant French full-back Clément Poitrenaud, a Gallic shrug in human form who gift-wrapped a decisive try for Rob Howley in the dying seconds of the 2004 final at Twickenham.

This year, there are two Heineken Cup newcomers among the head coaches of the six contenders from the English Premiership, and sure enough, both hail from down south. For the South African strategist Heyneke Meyer, who joined Leicester during the summer, the tournament is one of the primary reasons he decided to give rugby another go after losing out, somewhat controversially, on the top job with his beloved Springboks. For Steve Meehan, the Australian who first surfaced at Bath in 2006 and is fast transforming the West Countrymen into the most dynamic attacking side in the country, this is an opportunity to prove that Connolly and Howard are not the only born-and-bred Queenslanders worth their salt in this game.

Strictly speaking, Meehan is not quite the newcomer he appears to be. He experienced three Heineken Cup campaigns while working in Paris with Stade Français, first as assistant to Mallett and then to Fabien Galthié. "The first year, we lost to Munster in the last eight; the second year, we were beaten by Toulouse in the final," he recalled yesterday. And the third year? "Ah, yes. We didn't get out of our group. That tells you everything you need to know about the relationship between the big French clubs and the Heineken Cup. They want to win it, but their domestic championship is such a massive thing for them – even for Toulouse, who are the most successful team in the history of the Heineken Cup. I heard a story once about Guy Noves, their coach, calling a meeting at the start of a season and identifying his three priorities for the campaign. They were Le Championnat, Le Championnat and Le Championnat."

As coincidence would have it, Bath visit Toulouse on Sunday. "To start against them – well, it's a challenge, isn't it?" Meehan said. "The thing is to go there with the intention of playing ourselves, rather than stopping them playing, and we're capable of doing that. The players have disappeared into their shells only once this season, against Gloucester in the Premiership, and they lost because of it. There is no reason why they should do it again, even against a side who have what Toulouse have. By winning last season's European Challenge Cup [which plays second fiddle to the Heineken as the Uefa Cup does to the Champions League], we eradicated the notion that we didn't know how to play in finals. This is a very considerable step up, but it's the best place to measure our progress."

If Bath, as the first English winners of the title in 1998, have a Heineken Cup heritage, Leicester's runs deeper and, if anything, matters more. They have featured in four finals, winning two, and as the Tigers possess the financial muscle to match the likes of Toulouse and Stade Français, even if salary cap arrangements prevent them spending their own money, they are always judged against performance at European level.

"When I spoke to the board about taking over here, I said I wanted to establish Leicester as the leading club team in world rugby," said Meyer, who led the Pretoria-based Bulls to the Super 14 title 18 months ago and is attempting to become the first coach to win blue ribands in both hemispheres. "They were coming at things from the same direction, so the deal was struck. I realise the importance of the Heineken Cup to the people of Leicester, but I have to admit that winning this is probably a greater challenge than that posed by the Super 14. The level in Super 14 is high, but planning is easy in the sense that you have a full pre-season's preparation and then go full tilt for 16 weeks, without any distractions. The European season is much more complicated. Players must be managed in an entirely different way."

That Bulls victory over the Durban-based Sharks marked Meyer's last act in South African rugby. He pitched for the Springbok job and was heavily backed to land it, but was overlooked in favour of Peter de Villiers, the first black national coach in Springbok history. "I thought that was it between me and rugby," said the 40-year-old Afrikaner, who had not bargained for rejection. "I went into business, selling sports nutrition products, and didn't expect to coach again. Then, I saw last season's Heineken Cup final between Munster and Toulouse on television and caught the full force of the occasion. More and more people in my country had been watching broadcasts of the big games, but even so, I was taken aback by the passion of it. It rekindled my enthusiasm, and when the Leicester opportunity came up, I forgot all about the sports nutrients and stepped right back in."

Of the two coaches, Meyer has the more pressing problems. "I don't think we're even 50 per cent of the way towards the place I want to take this team," he admitted. "We still have big injury problems – Martin Castrogiovanni, Louis Deacon, Lewis Moody and so on – so this will be a slow process. But a Leicester coach doesn't have the luxury of long-termism. In Pretoria, I had the time I needed to build my empire. The culture at Leicester is different in that people expect results quickly. And it's for me to fit in with the Leicester culture, not fit the culture to myself."

For Meehan, the issues are different. "I'm not fazed in the slightest by the fact that Toulouse can splash so much more on players than any English club," he said. "It's not easy to buy yourselves a team with the winning habit, no matter what you spend. What really interests me is how the competition will be refereed. We have the Experimental Law Variations in place, along with the protocols covering control of the breakdown. Is there a common approach to this right across Europe? I doubt it. Any team wanting to go a long way in the tournament will have to be very aware and very disciplined. I think that plays into the hands of the English clubs." Especially Bath? Meehan did not disagree.

When the southern hemisphere game was professionalised and Super 12 became its staple – the competition grew in size when Australia and South Africa were each awarded an extra place in 2006 – its followers were unshakeable in their belief that this was the elite club rugby event on the planet. They were not far wrong at the time. But it quickly became obvious to anyone with eyes to see that the Heineken Cup, played on a smaller geographical scale and consequently more accessible to travelling supporters, was developing a partisan dimension wholly unfamiliar to rugby folk in Wellington or Canberra or Cape Town.

"Super 14 is about pure spectacle," Meyer explained. "The Heineken Cup is about something else, something unique to itself. There's a toughness and a competitiveness about the tournament and I'll take a while to come to terms with it. South African rugby is a pretty challenging environment, but this is different. I've been coaching since I was 20 and I've seen a lot, but this could be the biggest test of all."

Path to Bath: Meehan's coaching career

*Steve Meehan, head coach of Bath

*Age 39

*Born Queensland, Australia

*Has coached various teams in Queensland and Brisbane since 1999, and was the head coach at Brisbane Cyclone when they became the East Coast Series champions.

*As assistant coach at Stade Français, he helped the team reach the French Championship final three times in a row, winning in 2003 and 2004 and losing in extra time in 2005.

*Meehan also helped steer Stade to the final of the Heineken Cup in 2005 and, although they lost to Toulouse, he gained valuable coaching experience of top-flight European rugby.

Meyer of Leicester: South Africa to East Midlands

*Heyneke Meyer, head coach of Leicester.

*Age 40

*Was assistant coach for the South African national team, helping to lead them to the World Cup semi-finals in 1999.

*His greatest achievement to date is winning the Super 14 in 2007 with the Vodacom Bulls, the only South African side ever to have won the title.

*Meyer has also won domestic trophies in South Africa, including the Vodacom Cup in 2001 and the Currie Cup in 2003, 2004 and 2006, all with the Blue Bulls.

*Meyer has ambitions to coach the Springboks, but was beaten to the position last year by Peter de Villiers.

Pools and fixtures

Heineken Cup 2008-09 draw:

Pool 1: Munster (Irl), Sale (Eng), Clermont Auvergne (Fr), Montauban (Fr).

Pool 2: Wasps (Eng), Leinster (Irl), Castres (Fr), Edinburgh (Sco).

Pool 3: Leicester (Eng), Perpignan (Fr), Ospreys (Wal), Treviso (It).

Pool 4: Stade Français (Fr), Scarlets (Wal), Ulster (Irl), Harlequins (Eng).

Pool 5: Toulouse (Fr), Bath (Eng), Newport-Gwent Dragons (Wal), Glasgow (Sco).

Pool 6: Biarritz (Fr), Gloucester (Eng)

Cardiff Blues (Wal), Calvisano (It).

Heineken Cup fixtures: Round One: 10-12 October: Munster v Montauban, Perpignan v Treviso, Calvisano v Cardiff, Clermont Auvergne v Sale, Edinburgh v Leinster, Gloucester v Biarritz, Dragons v Glasgow, Scarlets v Harlequins, Ulster v Stade Français.

Round Two: 17-19 October.

Round Three: 5-7 December.

Round Four: 12-14 December.

Round Five: 16-18 January.

Round Six: 23-25 January.

Quarter-finals: 10-12 April.

Semi-finals: 1-3 May.

Final: 22-24 May (Murrayfield).

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