Dinamo Through - But Frozen Out

With no real hope of any significant thaw over the next few days, the Romanian champions will now play both legs of their quarter-final at Stade Pierre-Antoine, though Alessandro Stoica, the Romanian-born threequarter who has made his name with the Italian national side, will not be fit to play for Castres Olympique against his countrymen.

Nevertheless, Stoica will warn his clubmates - the 2002 Heineken Cup semi-finalists - that they must give Dinamo utmost respect.

"Dinamo are the best Romanian team and the PARKER PEN SHIELD is very important to them - they will be highly motivated," said the 26-year-old. "They have done extremely well to get this far and I will be warning my team mates to be on their guard because they will want to do well. Above all, we must not take them lightly.

"The fact that Dinamo are doing well is excellent for the image of Romanian rugby, it proves that rugby there is progressing and that the right moves have been made to enable the Romanian rugby nation to turn a corner. Their success this season is a good advert for Romanian rugby.

"Unfortunately, I won't be able to take part in the quarter-finals because I broke my right hand in a game before Christmas. However, it will still come as a great pleasure for me to see Castres playing against Dinamo at this stage of a European competition.

"I think it will be a good match for Castres and for the public - Castres have always had good links with Romanian rugby, they bring a lot of young Romanian players through their ranks and the game will hopefully enable us to put a good game plan into place."