Europe ready to stage another show for the world

Where is Andre Watson when you need him? Or Paul Honiss, or Stuart Dickinson? No, really. These poor misguided souls should be relieved of their one-way whistles and Super 12 contact lenses and encouraged to referee proper rugby as gloriously defined by the Heineken Cup. Then, at the conclusion of the pool stage - the business end of the tournament must always be left to those officials who understand the value of an eight-man shove and appreciate the beauty of a rolling maul executed in three feet of cloying mud - they could return to the southern hemisphere and explain in words of one syllable why the Webb Ellis Cup now resides on the other side of the equator.

Okay, okay. This is triumphalism gone mad. But the underlying point is deadly serious. Every four years, there is an almighty argument over how the World Cup should be controlled; in the middle of every tournament, there is a furious row over who can do what to whom in the scrums and how many blatant obstructions the Wallaby dummy-runners can commit before someone is penalised for something. Usually, the Europeans are left holding the smelly end of the stick, as they were last month. The true magnitude of England's victory in Sydney can be measured only in light of the fact that they prevailed despite the refereeing, rather than because of it.

The final was a classic - everyone says so, even great Wallabies of the recent past, such as the marvellous Tim Horan. Why? Because it was a real game, played and won by positional specialists in the true union tradition; a real game, in which tries were rarer than a Tory MP in a built-up area. It was a match that not only allowed Jason Robinson and Lote Tuqiri to do their thing, but permitted Martin Johnson and Phil Vickery to do theirs, too. This was not down to Watson and Honiss, who between them very nearly succeeded in de-powering a perfectly legitimate England scrum. It was down to Johnson's iron will in pursuing a strategy cemented in the basic principles of winning rugby: possession, pressure, points.

Which is where the Heineken Cup comes in. Of all the tournaments in world rugby, the annual gathering of Europe's élite domestic teams represents 24-carat union at its snarling, broken-nosed, partisan best. This is not southern hemisphere candyfloss, but northern hemisphere meat-and-two-veg. Tries will not be given away with cornflake packets when Leicester visit Stade Français this afternoon; they will be eked out of the damp Parisian earth by those displaying the right combination of guts and instinct. And it would be beneficial to everyone concerned if the likes of Watson, England's bête noire, were around to experience it.

Unfortunately, the Heineken does not cast its net that far. This season's competition cannot even claim to be a fisher of men on the British mainland, thanks to the administrators' decision to go satellite with the television contract. Quite how the dithering tight-wads at the BBC can flag up rugby as a foundation stone of their sporting coverage and then underplay their hand on both World Cup and European club championship fronts is a conundrum only they can solve, but the union game could certainly have used some free-to-air access in its efforts to maximise interest in the wake of the drama in Australia.

There again, the three-year deal with BSkyB should guarantee increased business at the turnstiles. Stuart Gallacher, the chief executive at Llanelli, has long blamed terrestrial broadcasting for the frequently disappointing attendances at Stradey Park. "We draw our support from a very wide rural area, and people tend not to travel long distances when the kick-off times are chopped and changed and they can watch the thing on the telly anyway," he said four seasons ago, and he has been saying it ever since. If Gallacher is right, Stradey will be buzzing whenever the bloody English come swaggering through the West Wales gloaming.

Not for the first time in recent seasons, Llanelli have an air of hostile intent about them. Brilliantly coached, as always, by Gareth Jenkins, who may not get another chance to guide his beloved Scarlets to a European title if the Welsh Rugby Union offer him the national coaching job after the 2004 Six Nations' Championship, they are certainly good enough to make the quarter-finals for the sixth time in eight attempts. Michael Phillips, the most exciting scrum-half prospect since Rob Howley, will be in the mix, as will Mark Taylor, the Lions centre recruited from Swansea under regional reorganisation. This could be their year.

But the same can be said for half a dozen others: Toulouse, Stade Français and Munster among the usual suspects; Perpignan, Agen and Wasps among the bristling flag-bearers of the new order. Perpignan, runners-up last season, can legitimately claim to be the most ambitious club in Europe. They have recruited players from across the map - Daniel Herbert from Australia, Dan Luger and Tim Stimpson from England, Mick O'Driscoll from Ireland - and are so sold on the idea of becoming the rugby focus for the whole of Catalonia that they are seeking the tournament organisers' blessing to host at least one major match at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona.

Their pool-stage ruckus with Wasps, the first instalment of which takes place in High Wycombe tomorrow, will reveal an awful lot about the Catalans and pretty much everything about the English champions, who rather fancy themselves after a run of six wins in seven Premiership outings. Notoriously slow starters, Lawrence Dallaglio's team will benefit both from the December start - a couple of months later than usual, due to the World Cup - and the return to fitness of Alex King, a match-winning outside-half in the Stephen Larkham mould. Given the grace of God and a following wind, they will be contenders come the spring.

They may be alone among the English contingent. Leicester, the only team ever to retain a European title, cannot defend their own honour at the moment, having just lost at home to a Bath side reduced to 14 men for the best part of an hour. Gloucester are nowhere near as convincing as they were a year ago, and will hardly be relishing another visit to Limerick, where they imploded so spectacularly last season. Northampton? Good, but not that good. Sale? Flatterers of the deceptive variety. Leeds? Out of their depth.

If the smart money is heading anywhere, it is across the water. The French have seldom looked so strong, not even in the early years of the competition, when Toulouse and Brive claimed the glittering prizes. Assuming Stade Francais find some form - and with Marconnet, De Villiers, Auradou and Tabacco in their pack, they cannot be expected to under-perform indefinitely - there is nothing resembling a dummy in the Tricolore shop window. Frighteningly, Toulouse will set about retaining their crown with the likes of Michalak and Poitrenaud hardened by World Cup experience and more comfortable than ever in handling the big occasion.

According to the arithmetic of Derek McGrath, the tournament's chief executive, no fewer than 134 World Cup players are spread across the 20 squads from six countries. That is some concentration of talent, and the really good news is that European referees will allow every last one of them to strut his stuff - even if it is in the darkened recesses of scrum and maul.