The 2011âÂÂ12 Heineken Cup was the 17th season of the Heineken Cup, the annual rugby union European club competition for clubs from the top six nations in European rugby. The final was held at Twickenham on Saturday, 19 May 2012, kicking off at 5 pm (16:00 UTC).
Leinster lifted the Heineken Cup by defeating fellow Pro12 and Irish side Ulster 42âÂÂ14. The victory gave Leinster their third Heineken Cup title in four years â a run of success unprecedented in the competition's history.
The default allocation of teams is as follows:
The remaining two places are filled by the winners of the previous year's Heineken Cup and Amlin Challenge Cup. If the cup winners are already qualified through their domestic league, an additional team from their country will claim a Heineken Cup place (assuming another team is available). Accordingly, Harlequins claimed the Challenge Cup winner's berth, and since Heineken Cup winners Leinster were already domestically qualified, the extra Irish berth went to Connacht.
The seeding system was the same as in the 2010âÂÂ11 tournament. The 24 competing teams are ranked based on past Heineken Cup and European Challenge Cup performance, with each pool receiving one team from each quartile, or Tier. The requirement to have only one team per country in each pool, however, still applies (with the exception of the inclusion of the seventh English team).
The brackets show each team's European Rugby Club Ranking at the end of the 2010âÂÂ11 season.
The draw for the pool stage took place on 7 June 2011.
Under rules of the competition organiser, European Rugby Cup, tiebreakers within each pool are as follows.
ERC has four additional tiebreakers, used if tied teams are in different pools, or if the above steps cannot break a tie between teams in the same pool: