By Billy Hamilton
June 18 2004

Our first foray into the Heineken Cup ends this week with a home game against Toulouse. This game means only pride to us but Toulouse needs a win to ensure that they secure home advantage in the quarter final

London Irish v Toulouse
Sunday 19th Jan KO 13:45hrs
Madejski Stadium
Referee : Iain Ramage (Scotland)

Match Preview and Heineken Cup Review
By Billy Hamilton

Our first foray into the Heineken Cup ends this week with a home game against Toulouse. This game means only pride to us but Toulouse needs a win to ensure that they secure home advantage in the quarter final.

There is speculation about the possible teams for this game. Will either of us be putting out weaker sides? We do not have much scope in our section procedures. We can only register 34 players for the competition. Of those two, Doug Wheatley and Pieter Rossouw have left us. We have at least 4 unavailable through injury, which leaves at most 28 from which to select a squad of 22. The only players who have played little or no part in this year's competition are matt cannon, Ian Critchley (prop), Pierre Durant, Adrian Flavin Rob Hoadley and Ed Thrower. So will they be given a run out or will we play our strongest side? We should know on Thursday.

Toulouse head coach Guy Neves is thrilled that his side has qualified for the knock out stage. He is aware of the task that lies ahead and will prepare for these games accordingly. He is signalling, however, the possibility of fielding a weakened side this weekend. "We will go to London Irish with all the pressure lifted off our shoulders. We know that it is a difficult place to get a win and London Irish have lifted their performance level considerably in recent months. But it won't be a game we will target and the fact that there is no pressure on us will give us a chance to rotate the squad somewhat ahead of important championship games".

So do not expect to see a full Toulouse side this weekend.

The referee for the game is Iain Ramage of Scotland. He refereed us at Reading last season in a game in which the team playing towards the North stand seemed to get all the penalties.

Our Heineken Cup Season

So far we have won only two of the five games we have played. We have won at home and lost our three away games albeit by a narrow margin. We certainly could have won our game at Toulouse with a fine performance against a strong side. We should have won the games against Newport and Edinburgh. In the former we had all the possession but they emerged victorious. In the latter we somehow allowed a 12-point lead to become 7-point defeat in the last five minutes of the game.

We have proved that we can play with the big boys but that our performance, particularly way from home, was not sufficient to secure the victories we deserved.

HEINEKEN CUP - Pool 5 -- Correct at 14/01/2003
TEAM	P	W	D	L	T	F	A	Pts
Toulouse	5	5	0	0	27	212	86	10
Edinburgh	5	2	0	3	10	93	146	4
London Irish	5	2	0	3	9	126	89	4
Newport	5	1	0	4	6	75	185	2

The Quarter Finals

Leinster, Leicester and Toulouse have already qualified for the knock out stage. The following table shows the relative positions of the 9 teams still in contention for the remaining 5 places, three as Pool winners and two best runners-up positions.

TEAM & POOL	DIFF	TRIES	PTS
Gloucester 2	+128	31	8
Llanelli 3	+45	16	8
Northampton 6	+68	13	8
Munster 2	+62	23	6
Perpignan 2	+16	18	6
Bristol 4	+18	13	6
Bourgoin 3	+35	13	6
Biarritz 6	+12	7	6
Ulster 6	+7	7	6