Welsh clubs have been trying to win a European trophy for so long that Jonny Wilkinson was still at school when Cardiff reached the final of the inaugural Heineken Cup, on the first Sunday of 1996.
That they only had to play three matches - they beat Ulster and Leinster and drew with Begles-Bordeaux - for the right to line up against Toulouse shows how the tournament has grown since the pioneering dozen began the adventurous business of conquering new frontiers.
They did so without the English and the Scots whose decision to sit the first season out left the trail-blazing to three French clubs (Toulouse, Begles-Bordeaux, Castres), three Irish (Leinster, Munster, Ulster), three Welsh (Cardiff, Pontypridd, Swansea), two Italian (Treviso, Milan), and one Romanian (Farul Constanta).
For that first final, Cardiff only had to turn left out of their home dressing-room into the big Arms Park as opposed to turning right into the smaller club ground. Their first European final since then, against Wilkinson's Toulon for the Amlin Challenge Cup in Marseille on Sunday, will require a slightly longer right turn, all the way down to the Mediterranean and the 60,000-capacity Stade Velodrome.
The journey ought not to be a problem for the Blues given their recent results on the road to the north-east and south-east of England. Nobody can question their right to be there, nor the wisdom of ERC's decision to enhance the prestige of the Amlin by rewarding the three highest-ranked non-qualifiers for the Heineken quarter-finals with places in the last eight of the secondary competition.
How ironic that the Blues should have been counted out of the big one despite accounting for Toulouse during the pool phase, winning a grim affair in suitably grim fashion 15-9, secured by four penalties from Ben Blair and one from Leigh Halfpenny.
Since losing the return and failing to make the cut for the last eight of the Heineken, the Blues have shown what the Heineken has missed - seven tries in scorching past Newcastle on Tyneside in the Amlin quarter-final followed by two more without reply in laying Wasps low at High Wycombe in the semi-final.
Now they face the most cosmopolitan team of all in Toulon, one with such a League of Nations flavour that they found room for only three Frenchmen in the starting XV against Connacht in Galway.
Toulon's promise to fill the vast majority of the Velodrome with 50,000 fans as handsome compensation for losing last week's French semi-final to ASM Clermont Auvergne ought to inspire the Blues on Xavier Rush's swan-song to show their opponents that money can't buy everything.
Coincidentally, Cardiff had another New Zealand back row forward, Hemi Taylor, at the helm, in their previous final when they had everything going for themselves except for the awkward fact that Toulouse of the mid-Nineties came from a different planet.
Exposed to the sorcery of a little fellow in midfield by the name of Thomas Castaignede, Cardiff recovered sufficiently from the shock of conceding two tries in the first 10 minutes to force the match into extra time through Adrian Davies landing his fifth penalty with the last kick of normal time, ample justification for his choice at fly half ahead of Mark Ring and Jonathan Davies.
Toulouse eventually ensured there would be no substitution for class and the Welsh have been firing blanks ever since, unable to reach another Heineken final, never mind win one. Llanelli, alone, have gone close.
Of their three semi-finals, two ended in cruel anti-climax -- the first against Northampton at the Madejski Stadium where Paul Grayson punished some needless indiscipline four minutes into stoppage time, the second against Leicester at the City Ground in Nottingham where Tim Stimpson bounced the winning, 60-yard penalty over off the crossbar and upright.
Only two other Welsh teams have made it as far as European finals, in the Amlin on each occasion. Pontypridd, under Paul John, got there eight years ago against Sale at the Kassam Stadium in Oxford only to be edged out 25-22 in a thriller.
The following year they closed the cheese mines in Caerphilly for the day when the local club beat the odds but not Castres in a one-sided European Shield final at the Madejski.
Saturday night before 80,000 in Paris ought to see a reaffirmation of Toulouse's status as Europe's premier club. While Munster's ranking as the official No. 1 is based on results over a four-season stretch, nobody comes close to matching the French club's consistency under the perennial Guy Noves over 15 years.
This is their sixth final, two more than Leicester and Munster. More pertinently, they have yet to lose one to another team in Le Championnat.
Biarritz, who may even have surprised themselves by their double whammy of knocking Ospreys and Munster out in successive rounds, will hope to succeed where Perpignan (Lansdowne Road, 2003) and Stade Francais (Murrayfield, 2005) failed in all-French European finals against Toulouse.
If it all goes wrong for his team, Noves cannot say he was not warned. As recently as eight weeks ago, two of Biarritz's big three - Damien Traille and Dimitri Yachvili - scored all the points in a 26-10 home win in the Top 14. The Basque club's other matchwinner, the untouchable Imanol Harinordoquy, has vowed to be there on Saturday despite a broken rib.
Whatever his team's fate, the France No.8 has provided the indelible memory of this season's tournament. None of those who witnessed it will ever forget his stupendous effort against Munster, despite the masked scaffolding built around his face to protect a broken nose and the subsequent pain from busting more than a gut. With Harinordoquy out there, anything is possible.
*****
The great and the good have had their say under Sir Ian McGeechan's watchful eye in picking the all-time ERC 15 - Geordan Murphy; Josh Lewsey, Brian O'Driscoll, Yannick Jauzion, Vincent Clerc, Ronan O'Gara, Rob Howley; Christian Califano, William Servat, Sylvain Marconnet; Martin Johnson, Fabien Pelous; Rocky Elsom, David Wallace, Anthony Foley.
A formidable line-up by any standard, one which defies anyone to follow it with an alternative, a test which requires a deep trawl through the seas of memory.
After plumbing the depths, I have dredged up a 'Leftovers' team with a choice in every position and anyone puzzled by my first choice as the alternative to O'Gara at stand-off must have forgotten what the player in question did in winning successive finals for Leicester.
The ERC Left Overs XV
15 Juan Martin Hernandez (Stade Francais Paris) or
Thomas Castaignede (Toulouse / Saracens)
14 Emile Ntamack (Toulouse) or
Ieuan Evans (Llanelli / Bath)
13 Allan Bateman (Northampton / Neath) or
Rua Tipoki (Munster)
12 Christophe Lamaison (Brive) or
Gordon D'Arcy (Leinster)
11 Shane Williams (Ospreys) or
Christophe Dominici (Stade Francais Paris)
10 Austin Healey (Leicester Tigers) or
Mike Catt (Bath / London Irish)
9 Gus Pichot (Stade Français Paris) or
Dimitri Yachvili (Biarritz Olympique)
1 Ricardo Roncero (Gloucester / Stade Francais Paris) or
Perry Freshwater (Leicester Tigers / Perpignan)
2 Mario Ledesma (ASM Clermont Auvergne) or
Keith Wood (Munster / Harlequins)
3 Nicholas Mas (Perpignan) or
Julian White (Leicester Tigers)
4 Paul O'Connell (Munster) or
Simon Shaw (London Wasps)
5 Rimas Alvarez-Kairelis (Perpignan) or
Jerome Thion (ASM Clermont Auvergne / Perpignan / BiarritzOlympique )
6 Lawrence Dallaglio (London Wasps) or
Thierry Dusautoir (Biarritz Olympique / Toulouse)
7 Neil Back (Leicester Tigers) or
Martyn Williams (Pontypridd / Cardiff Blues)
8 Imanol Harinordoquy (Pau / Biarritz Olympique) or
Pat Lam (Northampton Saints / Newcastle Falcons)
