For the purposes of draw, the 20 qualified and invited teams will be divided into four tiers of five teams each, based on their European performances over the past four seasons.

The teams from each tier level will then be kept apart in the draw for the pools. IrishRugby.ie will have full details of the draw on Monday.

2009/10 European Challenge Cup Draw Format -

• There are 20 participating clubs from six countries who will be drawn into five pools of four teams each

• For the purpose of the draw, the 20 qualified and invited teams are ranked based on their ERC European rankings and are divided into four tiers of five.

Rankings are based on European performance over the past four seasons in the Heineken Cup and knock-out stages of the European Challenge Cup

• Each pool will have one team from each of the four tier levels

• No two teams from the same country will be drawn in the same pool except for the sixth, seventh and eighth clubs from France (based on European ranking) who will be drawn into pools with another French team

2009/10 European Challenge Cup Teams and Tiers -

TIER 1: London Wasps, Saracens, Bourgoin, Worcester Warriors, Newcastle Falcons

TIER 2: Castres Olympique, Leeds Carnegie , Rugby Calvisano, CONNACHT, Montauban

TIER 3: Montpellier, Overmach Rugby Parma, Bayonne, Petrarca Rugby, Toulon

TIER 4: Rugby Rovigo, Racing-Metro 92, Albi, Bucuresti Oaks, Invite team 2 (Spain/Portugual (tbc))