Heineken Cup: The big draw

Nothing polarises opinion in club rugby like the Heineken Cup, which starts this week. Chris Hewett talks to two southern hemisphere coaches about its pulling power Tuesday, 7 October 2008 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,... [read full story]