A little disappointed that we are the 1 group with 2 English sides but have to be reasonably happy with it although 2 trips to France won't be easy.

Presence of Irish makes that a tough group, no doubt about it. Indeed, it's probably the "group of death" out of the five, though the steadily improving competitiveness of the French league means no group is truly easy.

On the basis that only one goes through from each group, I don't think that any of the pools is particularly easy. There are two strong sides in all pools. In some ways this competition has simply become a feeder for the Heineken Cup. Only allowing 5 clubs to proceed, in order to let 3 'lucky losers' from the HC makes it very difficult.

I would have loved to have avoided the second English club, but we don't do too badly at home against Irish; away is a different matter! So whatever happens it'll be a suitable challenge/learning curve, and at least there's a couple of nice away trips!

Well let’s hope that we can at least win all our home games. It would be great to make Kingsholm a fortress again.

That is an absolute must - fail to win at home and you don't deserve to progress!

I see that Bordeaux Begles beat Perpignan towards the end of last season, so no gimme there. I just hope we can win our home games and try and redress the balance against the Not Nots from Reading.
Will be an interesting season for us domestically and in Europe. We are almost an unknown quantity with the amount of players coming and going and that can play in our favour. Other teams won't know what to expect.

It's not an easy pool that's for sure but I can't see anything we can't handle. Lets remember that the other teams in the mix won't know a lot about a few of the newbies in the squad but they will know enough about last seasons.It's a learning curve for ND with the English Clubs but he will have that analysed very quickly so lets think positive. Its a good draw in my opinion. If we are going to win the competition we have to be good enough to win this pool and we are.