French duo to debut in HC next season
Wed, 26 May 2010 22:53
Racing-Metro 92 and Toulon will make their Heineken Cup debuts in early October as the 56th and 57th teams to take part in European club rugby's elite tournament.
And Cardiff Blues' 28-21 Amlin Challenge Cup final victory over Toulon in front of a tournament record crowd of 48,990 at Marseille's Stade Velodrome means the 24th and final place in the 16th season of the competition will be filled by fellow Welsh region the Scarlets.
The draw for the six Pools of four teams each will take place on Tuesday, 8 June with the six Tier 1 teams - Munster, Toulouse, Leinster, Leicester Tigers, Cardiff Blues and Biarritz Olympique - kept apart.
And while Racing-Metro 92 and Toulon will take their Heineken Cup bows in Round 1 in the autumn, Toulouse will start their defence of a record fourth title by playing their 111th match.
Guy Noves' team added the 2010 crown to the ones they won in 1996, 2003 and 2005 by defeating Biarritz
Olympique 21-19 at Stade de France watched by a crowd of 78,962 to bring the landmark 15th campaign to a record-breaking end.
The finals of the two ERC tournaments were watched by 127,952 fans - beating the old combined mark set in season 2003/04 by over 32,000 - with 1,081,430 fans going through the turnstiles for the 79 Heineken Cup matches.
The 24 teams to take part in the Heineken Cup are:
France (7): Toulouse, Biarritz, Clermont, Perpignan, Castres, Toulon, Racing-Métro 92
England (6): Leicester, London Wasps, Northampton, Bath, London Irish, Saracens
Wales (4): Cardiff Blues, Ospreys, Llanelli Scarlets, Newport
Ireland (3): Munster, Leinster, Ulster
Scotland (2): Glasgow, Edinburgh
Italy (2): Benetton Treviso, Aironi Rugby
Aironi Rugby is a new franchise being established in Italy compete in both the Magners League and the Heineken Cup. It will be based in the north of Italy, the heartland of Italian rugby. The name is the Italian for heron.
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