Hamilton was part of the Leicester squad in the mid-noughties looking to prosper from the retirement of the legendary Martin Johnson, the 2003 England Rugby World Cup-winning skipper who hung up his boots in 2005.
Ireland and Leinster lock James Ryan is expected to return to full training this week to put himself in contention to play in the Investec Champions Cup final on May 25.
The Champions Cup (also known as the European Rugby Champions Cup) is the pinnacle of domestic rugby union in Europe. Every year, elite domestic teams from the countries that take part in the Six Nations Championship battle for supremacy, with the winner of the Heineken Champions Cup widely recognised as the best domestic rugby team in Europe.
Looking forward to this year’s Heineken Champions Cup? Explore below to discover even more about the tournament, including all the latest results and fixtures, news and teams, as well as stats, standings and FAQs.
The Heineken Champions Cup was first played in 1995-96, when it was known simply as the Heineken Cup. Although the Five Nations Committee wanted to promote cross-border competition, English and Scottish teams did not take part during the inaugural tournament and Romanian and Italian teams joined instead. However, English and Scottish teams joined the next year and, in 1997, a home-and-away pools format was introduced for the first time.
Today, there are usually 24 teams that compete in the Heineken Champions Cup: eight teams from England, eight teams from France, and a further eight teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa and Wales combined. These 24 teams are placed into pools, where they play four rounds of matches. The top 16 teams then progress to the knockout stage while the bottom eight drop into the Challenge Cup.
In 2014-15, Heineken’s title sponsorship of the tournament came to an end and the tournament officially became known as the European Champions Cup, or simply the European Cup. However, as the competition was popular, most fans still simply referred to the competition as the Heineken Cup.
Heineken returned as a title sponsor in 2018, when the tournament became known as the Heineken Champions Cup. Now, the Heineken Champions Cup is universally recognised as the elite domestic rugby competition in Europe and fans regularly travel internationally to watch their teams play. In several seasons, crowds of over 80,000 have packed into stadiums to watch the prestigious final.
In 2023 the title sponsorship changed again, the official sponsor of the Champions Cup is now Investec.
