Dragons will learn their European when the pool draw for the European Challenge Cup takes place in Lausanne, Switzerland on Wednesday (June 19).
The Centre de Congrès Beaulieu will hst the draw for next season’s Challenge Cup pools at 1pm (UK time) with the Heineken Champions Cup draw after.
Both draws will be streamed live on www.epcrugby.com and on official tournament Facebook channels, with live broadcasts also on Virgin Media Sport and beIN SPORTS.
The event comperes will be Sarra Elgan (BT Sport) and Matthieu Lartot (France Télévisions), with Bryan Habana (Channel 4) and Dimitri Yachvili (beIN SPORTS) conducting the draws.
The following clubs have qualified for the 2019/20 Challenge Cup:
TOP 14 – Castres Olympique, Stade Francais Paris, RC Toulon, Bordeaux-Bègles, Pau, Agen, Bayonne, Brive
Gallagher Premiership Rugby – Wasps, Bristol Bears, Worcester Warriors, Leicester Tigers, London Irish
Guinness PRO14 – Scarlets, Cardiff Blues, Edinburgh Rugby, Dragons, Zebre Rugby Club
Qualifiers from the Continental Shield – Enisei-STM, Rugby Calvisano
Last year Dragons were drawn alongside eventual champions ASM-Clermont Auvergne and Northampton Saints, as well as Timisoara Saracens from Romania.
However, there's no chance of facing these three teams again as the latter were beaten over two legs by Russian team Enisei in the Continental Shield qualifying competition and the other two will be seen in next season's Champions Cup competition.
The draw for the tiers for the European Challenge Cup will take place first before the main draw. During the draw, some clubs may have to be placed directly into a pool in order to ensure that the key principles apply.
Click HERE for a detailed explanation of the Challenge Cup pool draw
Pool draws – key principles
- The 20 clubs are divided into four tiers based on their performances in the knockout phases of their leagues, and/or their qualifying positions from the leagues, or on other official qualification criteria. This will be done where necessary by a draw.
- The 20 clubs will then be drawn into five pools of four clubs each.
- Each pool will have at least one club from each of the three leagues.
- Each of the five pools will have one club from each of the four tiers.
- There will be no more than two clubs from the same league in a pool.
- No pool will contain two PRO14 clubs from the same country.
- Clubs from the same league will be kept apart until the Tier 4 allocation.
- In the Challenge Cup draw, a club from the Continental Shield cannot be drawn into a pool which contains two TOP 14 clubs or two Premiership clubs. And for the purposes of this draw, Rugby Calvisano cannot be drawn in to the same pool as Zebre Rugby Club.
EPCR weekends – 2019/20 season
Round 1: 15/16/17 November 2019
Round 2: 22/23/24 November 2019
Round 3: 6/7/8 December 2019
Round 4: 13/14/15 December 2019
Round 5: 10/11/12 January 2020
Round 6: 17/18/19 January 2020
Quarter-finals: 3/4/5 April 2020
Semi-finals: 1/2/3 May 2020
2020 finals – Stade de Marseille
Challenge Cup final – Friday 22 May
Heineken Champions Cup final – Saturday 23 May
