For me, there are three main routes into next year’s tournament. The first is the most easy to comprehend, and probably the most difficult to achieve.

Go direct to no1 seed, do not pass GO, do not collect €200 and all that. Tidy.

But what happens if Sarries beat Munster and then lose the final? Well, that will depend on who’ll be in opposition at the Millennium Stadium.

LONDON IRISH:

If the Exiles were firmly ensconced in the top half of the table, this wouldn’t cause too many problems as an Irish win over Toulouse at HQ would mean that England would have seven places available to its teams. Now, as Irish are eighth in the table, even if Sarries come seventh and the European Challenge Cup is won by either Sale or Bath (more of that later) an Irish win would see them leapfrog everyone to the top of the English pile, effectively making seventh place off-limits.

TOULOUSE:

If the real Stade (not those pink-shirted upstarts from Paris, thank you) wins the trophy, then there will be one fewer place for English teams, so while there would be no shame in a defeat to the greatest team in Europe, it would be a disaster for Sarries. Unless a place (via the second route) is awarded to……

A few seasons back, there was a place in the 13-strong list of candidates (which included the winners of the Wildcard final remember those games against Gloucester and Leicester?) for Heineken Cup qualification for a team that came second the previous season.

A situation such as the one we have this season has never arisen before, insomuch as when Leicester lost their finals, they were sufficiently high in the Premiership to qualify anyway. Not so this year with Sarries and Irish both outside the top half; so this could be a really controversial move.

If it’s a Sarries v Irish final and this qualifying criterion is applied, then we could see two teams from the bottom half of the league in June’s draw at the expense of  those finishing sixth and, depending upon who wins the Challenge Cup, fifth. That’ll go down as well as Marilyn Manson singing Star Spangled Banner before next year’s Superbow, I should coco.

I asked a Sarries official on Saturday about this and was told that enquiries were being made with Premier Rugby and the RFU to clarify whether the HC runner-up will get a place. I await the outcome of those enquiries with bated breath.

HOPE AND PRAY 

The third, most likely route.

A Sarries defeat to Munster, or one in the final allied to confirmation that an English Heineken runner-up gets nothing other than the losers medals means that there must be a million and one different permutations involving the Heineken, Challenge Cup and Premiership.

One has to think that the top four, whoever they may be, will be safe, especially if both Bath and Sale make the playoffs and one of them wins the Challenge Cup. If the ECC ends up at the Rec or Edgeley Park, then Worcester and Newcastle will not be able to usurp the team in sixth place. A Wuss or Falcons ECC win will mean, in all probability, curtains for Sarries. Unless, somehow, they can finish fifth.

Fnishing fifth is not a mathematical impossibility, but with games against in-form Wasps and second-placed Bath (away) still to play, then it’s going to be tough. Win those two, however, and it could just be possible going into Round 22 at home against Bristol, espeically with the last three rounds throwing up such fixture gems as Bath v Leicester, Wasps v Gloucester, Quins v Sale, Leicester v Quins and the daddy of them all, a final day showdown at Kingsholm between Gloucester and Bath. Not to mention the possibility of Worcester doing us a favour against Bath, as they did against Leicester, and Irish doing likewise against Quins.

Whatever happens, this Guinness Premiership season is, by a distance, the most exciting in its history as, with just three rounds to go, any one of six teams can still win the title and any of ten can make it into the Heineken Cup. So those of you who are anti-playoffs can go shove that in your pipe and smoke it.

But coming back to the matter in hand; Saracens qualifying for the Heineken Cup, I have just one thing to say to the coaches and players to keep things simple for us all:

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