The 2009–10 Heineken Cup was the 15th season of the

Heineken Cup The European Rugby Champions Cup (known as the Heineken Champions Cup for sponsorship reasons) is an annual rugby union tournament organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the top-tier competition for clubs who compete in a pre ...

, the annual

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the Comparison of rugby league and rugby union, two codes of ru ...

European club competition for clubs from the top six nations in European rugby. It started in October 2009 and ended on 22 May 2010 with the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: * Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of con ...

Stade de France The Stade de France (, ) is the national stadium of France, located just north of Paris in the commune of Saint-Denis. Its seating capacity of 80,698 makes it the sixth-largest stadium in Europe. The stadium is used by the France national foot ...

in which

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger Regions of France, region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania. The city is on t ...

defeated

Biarritz Biarritz ( , , , ; Basque also ; oc, Biàrritz ) is a city on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the French Basque Country in southwestern France. It is located from the border with Sp ...

21 – 19 to win the trophy for the fourth time.

Teams

Seven English teams participated, as an English team,

Leicester Tigers Leicester Tigers (officially Leicester Football Club) are a professional rugby union club based in Leicester, England. They play in Premiership Rugby, England's top division of rugby. The club was founded in 1880 and since 1892 plays its ho ...

, progressed further in the previous year's tournament than any French or Italian team. France had six participants, Ireland three, Wales four, Italy two and Scotland two. On Friday 29 May 2009,

Newport Gwent Dragons Dragons RFC ( cy, Dreigiau) are one of the four professional rugby union regional teams in Wales. They are owned by the Welsh Rugby Union and play their home games at Rodney Parade, Newport and at other grounds around the region. They play in t ...

defeated Calvisano 42–17 in a play-off to secure the 24th and final qualification place.

Seeding

The seeding system was the same as in the 2008–09 tournament. The 24 competing teams are ranked based on past Heineken Cup and European Challenge Cup performance, with each pool receiving one team from each quartile, or Tier. The requirement to have only one team per country in each pool, however, still applied (with the exception of the inclusion of the seventh English team). The brackets show each team's European Rugby Club Ranking at the start of the 2009–10 season.

Pool stage

The draw for the pool stage took place on 9 June 2009 in Paris. :

Pool 1

Pool 2

Pool 3

Pool 4

Pool 5

Pool 6

* Scarlets win the tiebreaker over London Irish by virtue of winning both of the matches between the two teams.

Seeding and runners-up

* Bare numbers indicate Heineken Cup quarterfinal seeding. * Numbers with "C" indicate Challenge Cup quarterfinal seeding.

Knock-out stage

The semi-final draw was conducted on 24 January in Paris. The winner of the topmost quarter-final on each side of the bracket receives home-country advantage in its semi-final. (The competition organisers have traditionally allowed Biarritz to take semi-finals to Spain, as it has stadiums that meet Heineken Cup semi-final hosting requirements that are far closer to Biarritz than any acceptable venue in France. The club also enjoys large support in the

Basque Country Basque Country may refer to: * Basque Country (autonomous community), as used in Spain ( es, País Vasco, link=no), also called , an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Spain (shown in pink on the map) * French Basque Country o ...

of Spain, a region with which it shares a cultural affinity.) All times are local times.

Quarter-finals

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Semi-finals

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Final

The final was played at the

in Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis.

Leading scorers

Points

Tries

Notes and references

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