European champions Wasps must get through group of death

And last year's beaten finalists Leicester do not have things much easier after being drawn alongside Leinster, Toulouse and Edinburgh.

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The final will be played at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium on May 24 or 25 next year.

Bristol's reward for an outstanding third-place finish in the Guinness Premiership last season is to be drawn against French champions Stade Francais, Cardiff and Harlequins.

Magners League champions the Ospreys are the top seeds in pool two, which also features beaten Premiership finalists Gloucester, Bourgoin and Ulster.

Newport Gwent Dragons won a play-off to claim the last available place in the Heineken Cup and draw pool one seeds Treviso, London Irish and Perpignan.

Biarritz would be favourites to win pool four, which also includes Saracens and Viadana, despite Glasgow being the top seeds.

European Rugby Cup selects Heineken Cup seeds for each group by country rather than on merit, which leads to a lop-sided draw. And Wasps will be hugely frustrated.

The last time they were defending champions, in 2005, Wasps were drawn against Leicester and Biarritz.

This time around, the task of qualifying for the knock-out stages is even harder. The six group winners and two best-placed runners-up reach the quarter-finals.

But Wasps face a Llanelli side who reached last year's Heineken Cup semi-finals, 2006 European champions Munster and Clermont Auvergne, who reached the French championship final last Saturday.

All four of those teams would enter the tournament with genuine aspirations of winning the title in Cardiff next May.

Almost the same situation occurs in pool six, where three-times champions Toulouse and two-time winners Leicester are in with last year's quarter-finalists Leinster.

The first round of matches take place on the weekend of November 9-11.

The final returns to Cardiff for the fifth time.

Cardiff hosted the first two Heineken Cup finals, when French clubs Toulouse and Brive won the trophy, and then when Leicester beat Munster in 2002.

The 2006 final saw Munster finally end their quest for the title with a victory over Biarritz.

It was an event which had an economic impact of over £25million on the Welsh economy.

Research produced by the Welsh Economy Research Unit declared the 2006 final "can be considered the most important single day event at the stadium to date in terms of spectator impact."

Last season's Heineken Cup final, between Wasps and Leicester, broke the world record attendance for a club match with 81,076 squeezing into Twickenham.