Heineken Cup final

**Leicester Tigers have now matched Toulouse in qualifying for five tournament finals and also have the opportunity of joining Toulouse as triple title winners. **There are 232 players from the 13 match day 22-man squads who own Heineken Cup final winners' medals - 42 have two medals and Cedric Heymans is out on his own with three (with Brive in 1997 and Toulouse in 2003 and 2005). Among the 42 double winners are current Leicester Tigers' players Martin Corry, Ben Kay, Lewis Moody and Geordan Murphy.

**Current Leicester Tigers' players Marin Corry, Ben Kay, Lewis Moody and Geordan Murphy have all appeared in three previous finals (2001, 2002 and 2007) and could now join the elite eight players to have appeared in four finals. The eight are Ronan O'Gara, John Hayes, David Wallace (Munster) and Yannick Jauzion, William Servat, Jean-Baptiste Poux, Fabien Pelous and Jean Bouilhou (Toulouse).

**Only three of those double winners have collected medals with different clubs. As well as Heymans, Philippe Carbonneau did it with Toulouse (1996) and Brive (1997) and Federico Mendez with Bath Rugby (1998) and Northampton Saints (2000).

**The all-Ireland semi-final between Munster and Leinster at Croke Park earlier this month was watched by a world record crowd for a club rugby match of 82,208.

**Leinster are the 14th team to contest a Heineken Cup final - in the 14th season of the tournament. The other Heineken Cup finalists are Toulouse (5), Leicester Tigers and Munster (4), London Wasps, Stade Francais Paris, Brive (2), Cardiff RFC, Bath Rugby, Ulster Rugby, Colomiers, Northampton Saints, Perpignan, Biarritz Olympique (1 each).

**Players from 14 different nationalities are on the winners' roll of honour, headed by 72 Englishmen and 65 Frenchmen. There are also players from Ireland (51), Scotland (10), Wales and New Zealand (eight each), South Africa (five), Samoa (four), Argentina (three), Australia (two) and one from each of Italy, USA, Canada and Poland.

**Over three-quarters of a million fans are set to attend Heineken Cup finals - a total of 719,015 fans have gone through the turnstiles for the 13 finals so far at an average of 55,309 per match. The first final, between Cardiff and Toulouse at the old Arms Park on 6 January, 1996, attracted a crowd of 21,800.

**The most tries scored in a final are the four by Brive when they beat Leicester Tigers 28-9 in Cardiff in 1997. The 19 points winning margin is the biggest in the 13 finals.

**The most points scored in a Heineken Cup final are the 64 rattled up at Parc des Princes in 2001. The 34 scored that day by Leicester Tigers is the most scored by a team in a final and the 30 scored by Stade Francais Paris is the most scored by a losing team.

**Two of the finals have required extra time to determine the winner and Toulouse won on both occasions, against Cardiff in 1996 and Stade Francais Paris in 2005.

**The most points scored by an individual in a final is the 30 kicked by Stade Francais Paris' Diego Dominguez (nine penalty goals and a drop goal) in the 2001 defeat by Leicester.

Raphael Ibanez, the London Wasps hooker, is the only front five forward to score a try in a Heineken Cup final when he crossed the Leicester Tigers' line in 2007.