If you were asked to compile a bucket list of rugby grounds to visit before you and your mortal coil went their separate ways, it's a pretty safe bet that the European leg of your farewell tour would take in the Stade Marcel Michelin in Clermont Ferrand, Paris's Stade Colombes, the Aviva Stadium in Dublin and the Stade Mayol in Toulon.

Cauldrons all. Febrile, claustrophobic, spine-tingling and intimidating. Small wonder that the clubs who play in those four stadiums boast impressive home records. Smaller wonder still that those English sides who will travel there on Champions Cup duty this weekend will go with more hope than expectation in their hearts.

Which is probably not what they had in mind during that ferocious period of infighting that led, ultimately, to the redrawing of the European rugby map just over a year ago. Back then, English clubs were in the vanguard of the fight to create a different kind of European competition, one that was ruthlessly meritocratic, one that did not play into the hands of those feather-bedded Celtic sides in their easy-easy PRO21 competition.

In that regard, at least, they can claim a certain degree of success. Over the five seasons preceding the current campaign, English sides were - by some distance - the poor relations of Europe's senior club competition. During that time, the PRO12 propelled 15 sides (the vast majority of them Irish) into the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup, France gained 16 last-eight places, while England's clubs claimed just nine slots.

It gets harsher still when you look at the teams which have actually won the thing. English sides dominated the decade between 1998 and 2007, winning the trophy six times in that period, but French and Irish sides have ruled the roost since. Munster, Leinster, Toulouse and Toulon have exerted a stranglehold that has kept the pride of England out.

How likely is that to change this weekend? Not very is the obvious answer, as home advantage is almost everything when the senior European knockout stages get underway. Over the past seven seasons, only one English side has won a quarter-final away from home. The idea that four might do so this weekend can only have its roots in fantasy.

In fairness, three of that quartet have European pedigrees. Bath, who travel to Leinster on Saturday, won the Heineken Cup in 1998, when Andy Nicol became the first non-Frenchman to lift the trophy. Northampton came out on top when they beat Munster in 2000, and were runners-up to Leinster 11 years later. Wasps were European champions in 2004 and 2007.

Yet all that history will count for little over the next few days. It is far from impossible that the Aviva Premiership will have no representatives whatsoever in the Champions Cup's final four. On the balance of probability and the results of recent seasons, you almost say that that is the likeliest scenario of all.

This in a year when English rugby will be in the spotlight like never before. In the early years of the millennium, English sides were the rain-makers and the pace-setters of the sport, and there was a growing sense of self-confidence about the country's rugby. They feared nobody. There were slips and upsets along the way, but everything came together in that annus mirabilis of 2003, with a Grand Slam in spring and a momentous World Cup later in the year.

The fact that this year's World Cup final will be staged at Twickenham will only add to the poignancy of the occasion if no English side can wrestle its way through to the climax of Europe's club season. When England launched their bid to host the Champions Cup final there as well, it was an open secret that the occasion was being seen as both a dry run and a moment when rugby's global focus would swing towards London. What chance of that if we end up with an all-French final?

Yet some perspective is also required here. While the Champions Cup quarter-final draw has not shaped up quite as the Aviva Premiership's more hawkish officials would have liked, the English league is still better represented in the last eight than either of the other two feeder competitions. And while the top-tier European competition could well be an exclusively Franco-Celtic affair by Sunday evening, we have little right to gloat at the travails of our friends in the south when having just one team at that level is something that our lot could not achieve this season.

There is also the consideration that French sides have a helpful habit of switching their attention to domestic matters at the business end of the season. There is precious little chance of Toulon doing that, poised as they are to complete a hat-trick of European triumphs, but either Clermont Auvergne and Racing Metro - respectively second and fourth in a fiercely competitive and tightly bunched Top 14 table - could just take their eye off the ball.

Whatever happens, a rich and compelling diet of top-flight European rugby lies in store. If the Six Nations' denouement 12 days ago glued you to your armchair, then you'd better get the supplies in again. We may only be bystanders in Scotland, but w can still enjoy the feast.