The head men at the 24 Heineken Cup clubs hail from all of the major rugby playing nations, here is the ercrugby.com run down on the coaches charged with bringing in European success.
All three Irish provinces have Australians at the top of their coaching pyramid. Tony McGahan has taken over from Declan Kidney as the man in charge of reigning champions Munster, Michael Cheika continues at Leinster and Matt Williams heads up the Ulster Rugby coaching team.
In addition, McGahan has another Aussie, Laurie Fisher, working with him, while Cheika has reinforced his back room with the addition of fellow Aussie Alan Gaffney and New Zealander Jonno Gibbs. Up 'north', Williams has Welsh namesake Steve Williams looking after the forwards and former All Black Paul Steinmetz as player-coach for the backs.
When it comes to coaching in the Heineken Cup, the Australians rank second highest in the tournament as Director of Rugby or head coaches. As well as the three Irish provinces, there are Aussies in charge of coaching at Bath Rugby - Steve Meehan - and Stade Français Paris - Ewen McKenzie.
All four Welsh Regions have Welshmen at the helm as head coaches, although there is a wealth of overseas coaching talent supporting the top men. New Zealander Andrew Hore is the Elite Performance Director at the Ospreys, ex-Wallabies defence coach John Muggleton is at the Scarlets and another Aussie, Bill Millard, has taken over as No 2 to Dai Young with the Blues.
The one Kiwi coach among the 24 Heineken Cup teams is Vern Cotter at ASM Clermont Auvergne, while there are two South Africans in the mix - Heyneke Meyer at Leicester Tigers and Franco Smith at Benetton Treviso.
There are Scots heading up coaching departments, Ian McGeechan at London Wasps and Sean Lineen at Glasgow Warriors, while the three Englishmen involved in the 24 team competition are Andy Robinson at Edinburgh, Dean Ryan at Gloucester Rugby and Dean Richards at Harlequins.
Five of the seven French teams have Frenchmen heading up their coaching teams - ASM Clermont Auvergne and Stade Francais Paris are the odd ones out - and there is another Frenchman, Philippe Saint-Andre, working as Director of Rugby at Sale Sharks and Marc Delpoux is head coach at Calvisano.
When it comes to captains, the French once again lead the way with each of their seven teams having a Frenchman at the helm, although Pierre Rabadan is sharing the duties for Europe with Sergio Parisse at Stade. Raphael Ibanez, in charge at London Wasps, makes it eight out of 24 French skippers in this season's tournament.
All three Irish provinces have home bred leaders, while another Irishman, Simon Easterby, is in charge at the Scarlets. There are four English leaders - Will Skinner at Quins, Martin Corry at Tigers, Martin Lipman at Bath and Mike Tindall at Gloucester - and one Puma, in Juan Fernandez Lobbe at Sale.
Only the Ospreys, in Welsh Grand Slam skipper Ryan Jones, have a Welsh leader this season, while two of the Welsh Regions, the Dragons and the Blues, have Kiwis leading them.
HEINEKEN CUP DIRECTORS OF RUGBY / HEAD COACHES
7 France; 5 Australia; 4 Wales; 3 England; 2 South Africa, Scotland; 1 New Zealand
HEINEKEN CUP CAPTAINS
8 France; 4 Ireland, England; 3 Italian; 2 Scotland, New Zealand; 1 Wales, Argentina
