Bristol Bears achieved their target of finishing the pool stages of the European Challenge Cup as one of the top two seeds by the narrowest of margins.
In the end Pat Lam’s side finished as second seeds from the eight teams to advance to the knockout stages by just two points having gone into the final round of games as the competition’s top scorers. That proved to be valuable.
As a result the Bears, and Toulon who finished as top seeds after thrashing Bayonne 50-6 on Saturday night, will both get not only home quarter-finals, but home semi-finals should they reach that stage of the competition.
Toulon particularly will be gunning for the final which is being played less than an hour's drive from them in Marseille at the Stade Velodrome on Friday, May 22.
Bristol will now player Severnside derby rivals the Dragons in the quarter-final which looks likely to be held on Sunday, April 5 at Ashton Gate as Bristol City are due to play Cardiff City in their own Severnside derby on Saturday, April 4.
All dates and times for the quarter-finals will be confirmed in due course by EPCR.
If Harry Randall had not scored a try in the 80th minute to see Bristol draw 7-7 against Zebre on Saturday the Bears would have been facing the much stiffer test of Castres at home - who beat Wasps 0-27 at the Ricoh Stadium today - and then potentially an away semi-final.
Here are the final seedings for the quarter-finals with the number of match points each side scored in brackets.
1 - Toulon (28)
2 -Bristol Bears (26)
3 -Bordeaux-Begles (26)
4 - Leicester Tigers (23)
5 - Castres Olympique (23)
6 - Edinburgh (21)
7 -Dragons (20)
8 - Scarlets (19)
And here are your Challenge Cup quarter-final line-ups to be played on the weekend of April 3-5
Toulon v Scarlets
Bristol Bears v Dragons
Bordeaux-Begles v Edinburgh
Leicester Tigers v Castres Olympique
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