European Challenge Cup Pools Announced

French No 1 seeds Agen will be in Pool 2 along with local rivals Pau, London Irish and Rugby Parma while The Borders, boosted by the return of Scottish and Lions legend Gregor Townsend, are in Pool 4.

They Scottish side will face one of Townsends former clubs, the 1997 Heineken Cup winners Brive, Jonny Wilkinsons Newcastle Falcons and LAquila.

And former Scotland scrum half and new Gloucester backs coach Bryan Redpath  who lifted the trophy as a player for the second time with Sale Sharks last month  finds his new club drawn in Pool 3 with Bayonne, Toulon and Bucuresti.

The draw, made in the Dublin offices of tournament organisers ERC was overseen by Mark Egan, the IRBs Head of Rugby Services.

The 2005/06 tournament will consist of 20 top flight clubs from six countries playing in five Pools of four teams with the five Pool winners and the best three runners-up qualifying for the quarter-finals.

The quarter-finals and semi-finals will be one-off matches played at home venues and the final at a neutral venue on the weekend of 20 / 21 May, 2006.

The new Pool format, which will provide each of the 20 participating clubs with a minimum of six games (three home and three away), will replace the previous seasons knock-out structure and the European Shield tournament.

After lengthy ERC Board consultations involving the views of both Unions and clubs, it became evident that there were strong requirements for guaranteed fixtures and higher quality contests, said ERC Chairman Jean-Pierre Lux.

The view was that the Pool format we have followed in the Heineken Cup is the best way to meet those needs.

There will be 20 teams instead of 32 and 67 matches instead of the 86 we had last season in the European Challenge Cup and European Shield.

Part of the reason for these reductions are the facts that there is no team from Wales, Italy have requested they have just six instead of 10 teams playing in Europe  two of them in the Heineken Cup  and France will have 14 and not 16 teams playing in Europe as from next season, seven of those in the 2005 Heineken Cup.

Seven French, six English, four Italian and one team from each of Ireland, Scotland and Romania went into the draw. The top teams from France (Agen), England (Gloucester), Italy (Viadana), Ireland (Connacht) and Scotland (The Borders) were seeded and drawn in separate pools.

European Challenge Cup 2005 / 2006 Pools

Pool 1: Viadana, Narbonne, Northampton Saints, Bristol

Pool 2: Agen, London Irish, Rugby Parma, Pau

Pool 3: Gloucester, Bayonne, Toulon, Bucuresti

Pool 4: The Borders, Brive, Newcastle Falcons, LAquila

Pool 5: Connacht, Montpellier, Worcester, Amatori Catania