\n<\/p>\n
Historically, earning home advantage for as far into the competition as possible gives the best chance of winning it.<\/p>\n
Holders Bordeaux, who again top the seedings after four bonus-point wins, reached the final with three comfortable knockout wins last year.<\/p>\n
They have continued their fine European form and once again look to be the side to beat.<\/p>\n
Leinster have not lost a pool game since 2018 and despite not being at their imperious best, continued their unbeaten record at this stage.<\/p>\n
However, as Glasgow Warriors picked up more bonus points, it leaves Leinster in an unfamiliar position of potentially travelling away from Dublin in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n
Based on seedings that would be to Glasgow, which both sides may prefer rather than a French side.<\/p>\n
Bath topped Pool 2 but because of a defeat by Toulon know they face an away trip to Bordeaux in the semi-finals if results match the knockout seedings.<\/p>\n
Away knockout wins do happen, with Northampton winning in Dublin in last year’s semi-final and Munster winning a last-16 tie in La Rochelle examples of just that.<\/p>\n
But as the next two rounds are played on back-to-back weekends in April, it means a high seeding is more than likely required to reach the semi-finals and beyond.<\/p>\n
Antoine Dupont’s Toulouse lost to Glasgow and Saracens but still managed to finish second in Pool 1 and will be one side who could rip up the seedings script, eyeing up a potential game with Bordeaux earlier than expected.<\/p>\n
Stormers, who paid the price for sending a weakened side to Harlequins, have a tough first knockout game against Toulon.<\/p>\n
The South African outfit have only lost once this season and will fancy the challenge of trying to secure an away win, before potentially heading to Glasgow.<\/p>\n
Northampton Saints have a home last-16 tie against Castres and after reaching last year’s final will not be afraid of travelling away deep in the competition.<\/p>\n
Victory would result in an all-English quarter-final against Bath or Saracens, leaving a Prem team guaranteed a semi-final spot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Historically, earning home advantage for as far into the competition as possible gives the best chance of winning it. Holders Bordeaux, who again top the seedings after four bonus-point wins, reached the final with three comfortable knockout wins last year. They have continued their fine European form and once again look to be the side<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}