GLASGOW Warriors will cross swords with former Scotland coach Vern Cotter in next season’s Champions Cup, having been drawn in Pool 3 along with his new club Montpellier.
PRO12 rivals Leinster and newly-crowned English champions Exeter Chiefs are also in the pool, which looks like being the most wide open of the five.
“It’s a really exciting group,” Warriors assistant coach Jonathan Humphreys said after yesterday’s draw. “We talked to Vern about this [facing Montpellier] a fair bit during the Six Nations. We were convinced it was going to happen.
“We’ve worked together for a long time, so we know what the strengths and the style of play of Montpellier will be, although we said we would double-bluff each other.
“Leinster, like a lot of the Irish teams, seem to base their season around the European campaign, so we’d expect them to have their best players available and really go for it.,” continued Humphreys, who was part of Cotter’s Scotland coaching team until the end of last season. “Leinster, Exeter and Montpellier all want to play a good brand of rugby, so I think it’s going to be a really good tournament for the spectators.”
Cotter, who has former Scotland coaches Nathan Hines and Richie Gray as his assistants at the French club, will be hoping to reverse the results the last time Montpellier and Glasgow met in European competition. That was back in season 2014-15, when the Warriors won 15-13 in France then 21-10 at Scotstoun.
The Challenge Cup, meanwhile, will see Edinburgh journey to Siberia to meet Krasny Yar, one of the two Russian clubs who qualified via the Challenge Shield. Stade Francais, who beat Gloucester in last month’s final, will be favourites to win Pool 4, which is completed by London Irish.
In both competitions the pool winners and the three best runners-up will qualify for the quarters-finals. The first round of pool matches is on the weekend of 12-15 October, with precise dates, fixtures and kick-off times to be announced.
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