English challengers Leicester and Sale Sharks have landed a fearsome pool draw in next season’s Heineken Champions Cup.

The pair, who cannot play each other in the group stage, face games against Champions Cup holders La Rochelle, runners-up Leinster, South African heavyweights DHL Stormers and Parisians Stade Francais.

They will play two matches at home and two away in December and January. The top four teams in each group will comprise the round of 16 later next term.

Premiership champions Saracens and Bristol, who replaced London Irish after the Exiles went into administration, will tackle Bordeaux-Begles, Vodacom Bulls, Lyon and Connacht in Pool 1.

Bath, Champions Cup qualifiers following a dramatic last day of the Premiership season, are in Pool 2 alongside Harlequins.

They will take on newly-crowned French champions Toulouse, Racing 92, Ulster and the solitary Welsh representative Cardiff.

Past tournament winners Exeter and Northampton are in Pool 3, where they will face fixtures against United Rugby Championship title holders Munster, Glasgow, Bayonne and Toulon.

Premiership challengers Gloucester have been handed a tough European Challenge Cup draw, being grouped in Pool 3 alongside Clermont Auvergne, Scarlets, Edinburgh, Castres and a yet-to-be-announced invited club.

Newcastle are in Pool 2 with Ospreys, Benetton, Montpellier, Perpignan and Emirates Lions, while Pool 1 comprises another invited club alongside Dragons, Pau, Oyonnax, Zebre Parma and Cell Sharks.

The top four in each group progress to the Challenge Cup round of 16, where they will be joined by the four fifth-placed Champions Cup teams.

The Challenge Cup and Champions Cup finals take place at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on May 24 and 25.

Ronan O’Gara has admitted he wants to coach Ireland after guiding French side La Rochelle to back-to-back Heineken Champions Cup triumphs.

Former Ireland fly-half O’Gara’s La Rochelle defeated Leinster in the final for the second successive season, fighting back from 17-0 down for a thrilling 27-26 win at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

O’Gara told the BBC’s Rugby Union Weekly podcast: “Yes, of course, I want to coach Ireland as well but you have got to earn that right.”

The 46-year-old, appointed by La Rochelle in June 2019 after coaching spells at Racing 92 and New Zealand side Crusaders, said the victory was one of the highlights of his career as both player and coach.

“Because it is the freshest it is always the best, isn’t it?” said O’Gara, who as a player won the Champions Cup twice with Munster, helped Ireland win the Six Nations Grand Slam and went on three British and Irish Lions tours.

“I’m just proud of the character of the team, 17-0 down and away from home, they could have easily found a way to find an excuse but these boys have character and character is important in sport.

“We love it. We care a lot for each other. We don’t talk about that but we act and there is no bigger proof in the pudding than back-to-back (Champions Cup wins).

“We are probably beginning to be seen as a special team and I think the boys deserve to be there.”

O’Gara, Ireland’s record points scorer and second-most capped player with 128 appearances, spared a thought for compatiots Leinster, who have lost in three of the last five Champions Cup finals after winning the title in 2018.

“Sport is ruthless,” O’Gara added. “I must admit that as a head coach or leader of this group, you feel for Leinster management and the players, it is horrible. One bus goes happy and the other bus is devastated.”

Rob Baxter accepts that Exeter will need to get “an awful lot right” when they tackle Heineken Champions Cup holders La Rochelle in this season’s semi-finals.

But Exeter will arrive at the 42,000-capacity Mahmut Atlantique stadium in Bordeaux on Sunday determined to underline their own rich European pedigree.

The 2020 champions are England’s sole survivors, having won five out of six games in Europe this season, including a gripping last-16 success against French champions Montpellier.

And they have got there despite patchy domestic form that undermined their Gallagher Premiership play-off bid as Chiefs missed out behind confirmed semi-finalists Saracens, Sale, Leicester and Northampton.

Exeter beat La Rochelle home and away during their 2019-20 Champions Cup-winning campaign, but the last-four represents Chiefs’ best European run since then.

La Rochelle, in contrast, lifted the trophy last term and were runners-up 12 months before that, confirming their status as strong favourites this weekend.

“They are a good team, and we are going to have to get an awful lot right and be massively resilient,” Exeter rugby director Baxter said.

“They are going to land shots, and we just have to get up and get on with stuff and not get hurt by any one thing that happens. That consistent level of intensity across 80 minutes is always the key in big games.

“We are going very much to overturn the tables, which is a nice challenge for us and one we should be relishing and looking to enjoy.

“We’ve got a pretty good record against French teams, and we’ve got to back ourselves with that a little bit and get on with stuff. We’ve got some good firepower in the team.

“We went to La Rochelle and won in our cup-winning year and we won in Castres this season. Occasions in France are brilliant – players love them, they are incredible experiences.

“I think you either thrive on the atmosphere, or you don’t. Every game has an ebb and flow around it, and you have got to stick in there sometimes for a long time before you get the benefits of scores.”

Sunday’s clash could be the final European game in Exeter colours for players like brothers Joe and Sam Simmonds, who are moving to France next term, England wing Jack Nowell – a major target for La Rochelle – and retiring Scotland star Stuart Hogg.

So the lure of a possible Champions Cup final appointment with Leinster or Toulouse in Dublin on May 20 cannot be underestimated for numerous reasons.

Baxter added: “We’ve got a collection of very good players. There is a lot of international quality in our team.

“The team we take over has got plenty of caps in it, plenty of players who have won important games.

“It is a big game for the club. It feels like a very tight group that is working very hard to make this game successful.

“That is the key, that is how you look after each other, whether you are staying or going, and it feels like we have got that kind of vibe around the place at the moment.

“They are going to come at us, and there are going to be times when we are going to have to weather it, stick together and hold our discipline, hold our work-rate and not take a breath.

“You stay in the fight when it is their moments, and then you take yours when it is your time. There is no way of dressing it up.”