2020–21 European Rugby Champions Cup

The 2020–21 European Rugby Champions Cup (known as the Heineken Champions Cup for sponsorship reasons) was the seventh season of the European Rugby Champions Cup, the annual club rugby union competition run by European Professional Club Rugby (ECPR) for teams from the top six nations in European rugby. It was the 26th season of pan-European professional club rugby competition.

2020–21 European Rugby Champions Cup
Tournament details
Countries	England France Ireland Scotland Wales
Tournament format(s)	Round-robin and knockout
Date	12 December 2020 – 22 May 2021
Tournament statistics
Teams	24
Top point scorer(s)	Matthieu Jalibert (Bordeaux) 72 points
Top try scorer(s)	Santiago Cordero (Bordeaux) Kotaro Matsushima (Clermont) Xavier Mignot (Lyon) Antoine Dupont (Toulouse) 4 tries
Final
Venue	Twickenham Stadium
Champions	Toulouse (5th title)
Runners-up	La Rochelle

The tournament began on 11 December 2020. The final, originally scheduled at the Stade de Marseille, occurred on 22 May 2021 at Twickenham Stadium.

On 11 January 2021, EPCR suspended the tournament due to further public health restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A revised format was announced on 24 February 2021.

Teams

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic delaying the end of the previous tournament twenty-four clubs from the three major European domestic and regional leagues would compete in the Champions Cup in a one-year exceptional basis. EPCR chief Vincent Gaillard confirmed the 24-team tournament in August 2020.

The distribution of teams is:

• England: eight clubs
  • The top eight clubs in Premiership Rugby
• France: eight clubs
  • The top eight clubs in the Top 14
• Ireland, Italy, Scotland, Wales: eight clubs
  • The top four sides (not including the South African sides, which are ineligible for EPCR competitions) in both conferences in the Pro14.

While the 2019–20 Top 14 season was cancelled due to COVID-19, the Premiership and Pro14 resumed in August 2020. However, the Pro14 announced in June 2020 that their European representation would be decided by standings after round 13, the final series of games before the hiatus. The following teams qualified for the tournament via their league performance.

Premiership	Top 14	Pro14
England	France	Ireland	Scotland	Wales
Bath Bristol Bears Exeter Chiefs Gloucester Harlequins Northampton Saints Sale Sharks Wasps	Bordeaux Bègles Clermont La Rochelle Lyon Montpellier Racing 92 Toulon Toulouse	Connacht Leinster Munster Ulster	Edinburgh Glasgow Warriors	Dragons Scarlets

Team details

Below is the list of coaches, captain and stadiums with their method of qualification for each team.

Note: Placing shown in brackets, denotes standing at the end of the regular season for their respective leagues, with their end of season positioning shown through CH for Champions, RU for Runner-up and SF for losing Semi-finalist.

Team	Coach / Director of Rugby	Captain	Stadium	Capacity	Method of qualification
Bath	Stuart Hooper	Charlie Ewels	The Recreation Ground	14,509	Premiership top 8 (4th) (SF)
Bordeaux Bègles	Christophe Urios	Jefferson Poirot	Stade Chaban-Delmas	34,694	Top 14 top 8 (1st)
Bristol Bears	Pat Lam	Steve Luatua	Ashton Gate	27,000	Premiership top 8 (3rd) (SF)
Clermont	Franck Azéma	Morgan Parra	Stade Marcel-Michelin	19,022	Top 14 top 8 (6th)
Connacht	Andy Friend	Jarrad Butler	Galway Sportsgrounds	8,129	Pro14 Conference B (4th)
Dragons	Dean Ryan	Rhodri Williams	Rodney Parade	8,700	Pro14 Conference A (5th)
Edinburgh	Richard Cockerill	Stuart McInally	Murrayfield	12,464	Pro14 Conference B (1st) (SF)
Exeter Chiefs	Rob Baxter	Jack Yeandle	Sandy Park	13,593	Premiership top 8 (1st) (CH)
Glasgow Warriors	Danny Wilson	Fraser Brown Ryan Wilson	Scotstoun Stadium	7,351	Pro14 Conference A (3rd)
Gloucester	George Skivington	Lewis Ludlow	Kingsholm Stadium	16,115	Premiership top 8 (7th)
Harlequins	Paul Gustard Billy Millard	Stephan Lewies	Twickenham Stoop	14,800	Premiership top 8 (6th)
La Rochelle	Jono Gibbes	Victor Vito	Stade Marcel-Deflandre	16,000	Top 14 top 8 (5th)
Leinster	Leo Cullen	Johnny Sexton	RDS Arena Aviva Stadium	18,500 51,700	Pro14 Conference A (1st) (CH)
Lyon	Pierre Mignoni	Baptiste Couilloud Félix Lambey	Matmut Stadium de Gerland	25,000	Top 14 top 8 (2nd)
Montpellier	Xavier Garbajosa	Fulgence Ouedraogo	Altrad Stadium	15,697	Top 14 top 8 (8th)
Munster	Johann van Graan	Peter O'Mahony	Thomond Park	25,600	Pro14 Conference B (2nd) (SF)
Northampton Saints	Chris Boyd	Lewis Ludlam Alex Waller	Franklin's Gardens	15,200	Premiership top 8 (8th)
Racing 92	Laurent Travers	Henry Chavancy	Paris La Défense Arena	30,681	Top 14 top 8 (3rd)
Sale Sharks	Paul Deacon	Jono Ross	AJ Bell Stadium	12,000	Premiership top 8 (5th)
Scarlets	Glenn Delaney	Ken Owens	Parc y Scarlets	14,870	Pro14 Conference B (3rd)
Toulon	Patrice Collazo	Raphaël Lakafia	Stade Mayol	18,200	Top 14 top 8 (4th)
Toulouse	Ugo Mola	Julien Marchand	Stade Ernest-Wallon	19,500	Top 14 top 8 (7th)
Ulster	Dan McFarland	Iain Henderson	Ravenhill Stadium	18,196	Pro14 Conference A (2nd) (RU)
Wasps	Lee Blackett	Dan Robson Thomas Young	Ricoh Arena	32,609	Premiership top 8 (2nd) (RU)

Seeding

The twenty four teams would be broken down into two pools of twelve. Originally, four rounds of inter-pool play was to be followed by a knockout stage, featuring two-legged quarterfinals, and single leg semi-finals and final (to be held in Marseille on 22 May 2021). However at suspension of the tournament in January 2021, only two rounds of the pool stage were completed and the revised format would introduce a round of 16 following these.

For the purposes of the pool draw, the clubs would be separated into tiers based on their league finishing position, and clubs from the same league in the same tier would not be drawn into the same pool. The number 1 and number 2 ranked clubs from each league will be in Tier 1, the number 3 and number 4 ranked clubs would be in Tier 2, the number 5 and 6 ranked clubs would be in Tier 3, and the number 7 and number 8 ranked clubs would be Tier 4.

The pool stage would feature the Tier 1 teams playing the Tier 4 teams in their pool (that are not from the same league) twice in a home or away manner, while the Tier 2 and 3 clubs would follow in a similar manner.

When the revised format was announced, the top eight teams from each pool would qualify for the knockout stage of the Champions Cup and teams finishing between 9th and 12th in each pool would join the Challenge Cup at the Round of 16 stage, joining eight qualifiers from the Challenge Cup pool stage. Due to the suspension in January 2021, only six weekends of play would be provided for, three less than in previous seasons.

Tier	Rank	Top 14	Premiership	Pro14
1	1	Bordeaux Bègles	Exeter Chiefs	Leinster
	2	Lyon	Wasps	Ulster
2	3	Racing 92	Bristol Bears	Munster
	4	Toulon	Bath	Edinburgh
3	5	La Rochelle	Sale Sharks	Scarlets
	6	Clermont	Harlequins	Connacht
4	7	Toulouse	Gloucester	Glasgow Warriors
	8	Montpellier	Northampton Saints	Dragons

Pool stage

Main article: 2020–21 European Rugby Champions Cup pool stage

[[File:

Bath

Exeter

Wasps

Gloucester

Harlequins

Northampton

Sale

Bristol

Clermont

Lyon

Montpellier

Racing

La Rochelle

Toulouse

Bordeaux

Toulon

Leinster

Munster

Ulster

Connacht

Edinburgh

Glasgow

Scarlets

Dragons

class=notpageimage|

Locations

|1500px|alt=Locations of teams of the 2020–21 European Rugby Champions Cup pool stage.
Green: Pool A; Red: Pool B.]]

[[:File:

Bath

Exeter

Wasps

Gloucester

Harlequins

Northampton

Sale

Bristol

Clermont

Lyon

Montpellier

Racing

La Rochelle

Toulouse

Bordeaux

Toulon

Leinster

Munster

Ulster

Connacht

Edinburgh

Glasgow

Scarlets

Dragons

class=notpageimage|

Locations

| ]]

Locations of teams of the 2020–21 European Rugby Champions Cup pool stage.
Green: Pool A; Red: Pool B.

The draw took place on 28 October 2020 at the Maison du Sport International in Lausanne, Switzerland. The 24 teams were drawn into the two pools as follows, this also shows their opponents. Fixtures were announced on 13 November 2020.

Key to colours

	Top 8 in each pool, advance to round of 16.
	Teams ranked 9th–12th in each pool advance to 2020–21 European Rugby Challenge Cup round of 16

Pool A

Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	Diff	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts
Leinster	2	2	0	0	70	33	+37	9	4	2	0	10
Wasps	2	2	0	0	57	22	+35	9	3	2	0	10
Bordeaux Bègles	2	2	0	0	63	20	+43	8	1	1	0	9
La Rochelle	2	2	0	0	41	8	+33	6	1	1	0	9
Scarlets	2	2	0	0	51	19	+32	6	2	1	0	9
Edinburgh	2	1	0	1	24	28	-4	2	4	0	1	5
Toulon	2	1	0	1	26	42	-16	2	6	0	0	4
Sale Sharks	2	0	0	2	29	42	-13	4	3	0	1	1
Northampton Saints	2	0	0	2	31	51	-20	3	5	0	1	1
Bath	2	0	0	2	19	51	-32	2	6	0	1	1
Montpellier	2	0	0	2	28	68	-40	3	10	0	0	0
Dragons	2	0	0	2	16	71	-55	2	11	0	0	0

Pool B

Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	Diff	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts
Lyon	2	2	0	0	83	10	+73	12	1	1	0	10
Racing 92	2	2	0	0	75	29	+46	11	4	2	0	10
Toulouse	2	2	0	0	57	22	+35	8	3	2	0	10
Munster	2	2	0	0	60	38	+22	5	5	0	0	8
Clermont	2	1	0	1	82	77	+5	11	8	2	0	6
Bristol Bears	2	1	0	1	65	69	-4	9	9	2	0	6
Exeter Chiefs	2	1	0	1	42	28	+14	6	4	1	0	5
Gloucester	2	1	0	1	48	89	-41	6	12	1	0	5
Ulster	2	0	0	2	56	67	-11	7	9	1	2	3
Connacht	2	0	0	2	40	53	-13	5	8	0	1	1
Harlequins	2	0	0	2	14	70	-56	2	9	0	0	0
Glasgow Warriors	2	0	0	2	0	70	-70	0	10	0	0	0

Knockout stage

The knockout stage will commence with a round of 16 consisting of the top 8 ranked teams from each pool. Due to the truncation of the pool stage, a draw will be used to determine matches in both round of 16 and quarter-finals but no team will face a team from the same league in the round of 16. Teams which won both their matches and were not awarded points due to COVID cancellations would be guaranteed home advantage. Therefore, Bordeaux Bègles, Leinster, Munster, Racing 92 and Wasps will receive home advantage.

The draw for the round of 16 and quarter-finals took place on 9 March 2021 in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Bracket

	Round of 16				Quarter-finals				Semi-finals				#Final
	Wasps	25
	Clermont	27
					Clermont	12
					Toulouse	21
	Munster	33
	Toulouse	40
									Toulouse	21
									Bordeaux Bègles	9
	Bordeaux Bègles	36
	Bristol Bears	17
					Bordeaux Bègles	24
					Racing 92	21
	Racing 92	56
	Edinburgh	3
													Toulouse	22
													La Rochelle	17
	Gloucester	16
	La Rochelle	27
					La Rochelle	45
					Sale Sharks	21
	Scarlets	14
	Sale Sharks	57
									La Rochelle	32
									Leinster	23
	Exeter Chiefs	47
	Lyon	25
					Exeter Chiefs	22
					Leinster	34
	Leinster	Bye
	Toulon

Round of 16

Fixtures were announced on 16 March 2021.

2 April 2021 17:30 IST

Leinster	Cancelled	Toulon

RDS Arena Referee: Matthew Carley (England)

2 April 2021 20:00 BST

Gloucester	16–27	La Rochelle
Try: Ackermann 31' c Con: Barton (1/1) 32' Pen: Barton (3/3) 2', 12', 59'	Report	Try: Leyds 8' m Retière 22' c Con: West (1/2) 23' Pen: West (3/3) 17', 48', 55' Plisson (2/2) 65', 71'

Kingsholm Attendance: 0 Referee: Andrew Brace (Ireland)

3 April 2021 12:30 BST

Wasps	25–27	Clermont
Try: Odogwu 5' c Bassett 23' c Harris 54' m Con: Umaga (2/3) 5', 24' Pen: Umaga (2/2) 39', 40+2'	Report	Try: Bézy 11' c Ravai 17' c Matsushima 80+2' c Con: Nanai-Williams (1/1) 12' Lopez (2/2) 20', 80+3' Pen: Lopez (2/3) 52', 67'

Ricoh Arena Attendance: 0 Referee: Frank Murphy (Ireland)

3 April 2021 15:00 IST

Munster	33–40	Toulouse
Try: Earls (2) 24' m, 27' m Coombes (2) 50' c, 80' c Con: Carbery (1/3) 51' Casey (1/1) 80' Pen: Carbery (2/2) 14', 40+1' Hanrahan (1/1) 65'	Report	Try: Lebel 42' c Marchand 54' c Dupont (2) 67' c, 76' c Con: Ntamack (4/4) 43', 55', 68', 77' Pen: Ntamack (4/6) 3', 16', 30', 75'

Thomond Park Attendance: 0 Referee: Wayne Barnes (England)

3 April 2021 17:30 BST

Exeter Chiefs	47–25	Lyon
Try: Hill (2) 14' m, 25' c O'Flaherty 28' c Devoto 38' c Ewers 50' c Penalty try 62' Woodburn 75' c Con: J. Simmonds (4/5) 27', 30', 39', 51' Skinner (1/1) 77'	Report	Try: Couilloud 5' c Mignot 8' c Cretin 79' m Con: Wisniewski (2/3) 6', 9' Pen: Wisniewski (2/2) 17', 34'

Sandy Park Attendance: 0 Referee: Ben Whitehouse (Wales)

4 April 2021 13:30 CET

Racing 92	56–3	Edinburgh
Try: Chat 25' c Machenaud 33' c Joseph 62' c Gogichashvili 66' c Thomas (2) 69' c, 74' m Trinh-Duc 79' c Con: Machenaud (2/2) 26', 34' Iribaren (4/5) 63', 67', 70', 80' Pen: Machenaud (2/3) 7', 31' Gibert (1/2) 56'	Report	Pen: Kinghorn (1/1) 13'

Paris La Défense Arena Attendance: 0 Referee: Luke Pearce (England)

4 April 2021 16:00 CET

Bordeaux Bègles	36–17	Bristol Bears
Try: Jalibert 44' c Dweba 70' c Ducuing 79' c Con: Jalibert (1/1) 45' Lucu (2/2) 71', 80' Pen: Jalibert (5/6) 9', 15', 21', 34', 40'	Report	Try: Purdy 6' m Pen: Sheedy (4/4) 13', 17', 26', 55'

Stade Chaban-Delmas Attendance: 0 Referee: Mike Adamson (Scotland)

4 April 2021 17:30 BST

Scarlets	14–57	Sale Sharks
Try: Owens 46' c J. Morgan 76' c Con: Halfpenny (2/2) 47', 76'	Report	Try: Van der Merwe (2) 16' c, 29' c MacGinty 41' c Yarde 51' c Beaumont 62' c Quirke 77' c Con: MacGinty (6/6) 17', 31', 42', 53', 63', 78' Pen: MacGinty (5/5) 2', 25', 36', 68', 70'

Parc y Scarlets Attendance: 0 Referee: Mathieu Raynal (France)

Quarter-finals

10 April 2021 16:00 CET

La Rochelle	45–21	Sale Sharks
Try: Alldritt 28' m Leyds 36' c Rhule (2) 41' c, 51' m Doumayrou (2) 61' c, 69' m Con: West (3/6) 37', 42', 62' Pen: West (3/4) 11', 21', 65'	Report	Try: S. James 40+1' c McGuigan 76' m Con: MacGinty (1/2) 40+4' Pen: MacGinty (3/4) 9', 26', 33'

Stade Marcel-Deflandre Attendance: 0 Referee: Andrew Brace (Ireland)

10 April 2021 17:30 BST

Exeter Chiefs	22–34	Leinster
Try: O'Flaherty (2) 2' c, 7' c Ewers 42' m Con: J. Simmonds (2/3) 3', 9' Pen: J. Simmonds (1/1) 47'	Report	Try: Lowe 17' c Larmour (2) 28' c, 56' m Con: Sexton (1/1) 18' R. Byrne (1/2) 29' Pen: R. Byrne (5/5) 32', 40', 50', 65', 79'

Sandy Park Attendance: 0 Referee: Mathieu Raynal (France)

11 April 2021 13:30 CET

Bordeaux Bègles	24–21	Racing 92
Pen: Jalibert (8/9) 5', 16', 22', 48', 59', 61', 74', 80+2'	Report	Pen: Machenaud (4/5) 2', 25', 44', 53' Iribaren (2/2) 67', 79' Drop: Gibert 14'

Stade Chaban-Delmas Attendance: 0 Referee: Matthew Carley (England)

11 April 2021 16:00 CET

Clermont	12–21	Toulouse
Pen: Parra (4/5) 24', 28', 41', 57'	Report	Pen: Ntamack (7/9) 32', 39', 43', 48', 55', 61', 64', 72'

Stade Marcel-Michelin Attendance: 0 Referee: Luke Pearce (England)

Semi-finals

The draw for the semi-finals took place on 11 April 2021 at BT Sport's studios in London. As a result of the pandemic all matches will be held at the designated club's home ground.

1 May 2021 16:00 CET

Toulouse	21–9	Bordeaux Bègles
Try: Lebel 5' m Dupont 71' c Con: Ntamack (1/2) 72' Pen: Ntamack (3/3) 38', 44', 64'	Report	Pen: Jalibert (3/4) 3', 20', 68'

Stade Ernest-Wallon Referee: Wayne Barnes (England)

2 May 2021 16:00 CET

La Rochelle	32–23	Leinster
Try: Alldritt 65' c Skelton 73' c Con: West (2/2) 67', 75' Pen: West (5/6) 15', 32', 36', 46', 56' Drop: West 18'	Report	Try: Furlong 8' c Byrne 77' c Con: Byrne (2/2) 8', 77' Pen: Byrne (3/4) 20', 26', 52'

Stade Marcel-Deflandre Referee: Matthew Carley (England)

Final

Main article: 2021 European Rugby Champions Cup Final

22 May 2021 16:45

La Rochelle	17–22	Toulouse
Try: Kerr-Barlow 72' m Pen: West (4/6) 7', 26', 32', 40'	Report	Try: Cruz Mallía 59' c Con: Ntamack (1/1) 60' Pen: Ntamack (5/5) 4', 10', 37', 46', 69'

Twickenham Stadium Attendance: 10,000 Referee: Luke Pearce (England)

See also

• 2020–21 European Rugby Challenge Cup