Stade will now be seeded number one in France, Perpignan two, Castres three and Toulouse four.

The pools and fixtures for the 2004/05 Heineken Cup will be announced on Tuesday next, and the time and date of matches in the early rounds of matches will be confirmed in August following meetings with broadcast partners across Europe.

Please note that the Pools for the 10th anniversary Heineken Cup campaign, and the fixture weekends for the 2004/2005 season, will be released to the media after lunch (approximately 2.30pm) on TUESDAY, 29 JUNE.

Fixtures will be released to correspond to the six Pool weekends, but will not be assigned to specific dates or kick-off times until approximately the middle of August. The reason for the times and dates of the fixtures being released in mid August is that ERC will be consulting with its broadcaster partners to decide the televised fixtures.

The make-up of the 24 teams for the 2004/2005 competition will be as follows:

HEINEKEN CUP 2004/05

ENGLAND - 7 teams

London Wasps, Bath Rugby, Northampton Saints, NEC Harlequins, Newcastle Falcons, Gloucester, Leicester Tigers.

FRANCE - 6 teams

Stade Fran ais Paris, Castres Olympique, Toulouse, Bourgoin, Biarritz Olympique.

WALES - 4 teams

Llanelli Scarlets, Newport Gwent Dragons, Neath-Swansea Ospreys, Cardiff Blues.

IRELAND - 3 teams

Munster, Leinster, Ulster.

SCOTLAND - 2 teams

Edinburgh Rugby, Glasgow Rugby

ITALY - 2 teams

Benetton Treviso, Rugby Calvisano

The Pool matches will be played on the following weekends:

ROUND 1: 22/23/24 October

ROUND 2: 29/30/31 October

ROUND 3: 3/4/5 December

ROUND 4: 10/11/12 December

ROUND 5: 7/8/9 January, 2005

ROUND 6: 14/15/16 January, 2005

Quarter-finals 1/2/3 April 2005

Semi-finals 22/23/24 April 2005

Final to be played in Murrayfield, Edinburgh on 21/22 May 2005.