Heineken has refreshed most parts of European rugby during the past 14 years.

But rarely can the European club game's blue riband competition have needed such a big season as the one about to unfold.

It is not that the Heineken Cup has gone flat - far from it - but a bitter taste was created by English rugby's summer of shame when Harlequins and three former Bath players made headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Lines might have been drawn under both sorry episodes, yet another rip-roaring Heineken Cup campaign would be just what the doctor ordered.

The Guinness Premiership has not ripped up any trees this term - with the honourable exception of try-hungry London Irish - as defences and laborious bouts of kicking have dominated.

So while the Heineken Cup is always greeted with great swathes of excitement and expectation, the game in general really needs it to deliver once more.

The opening weekend's action alone might just do the trick.

Irish, the Premiership's most exciting team by a country mile, head to Ireland for a Friday night showdown with Brian O'Driscoll and reigning European champions Leinster.

Twice Heineken Cup winners Munster, meanwhile, fly the other way, facing Northampton at their fortress Franklin's Gardens in a repeat of the 2000 final.

Munster's visit has caught the imagination to such a feverish degree that the game sold out weeks ago.

Quins, having avoided the ultimate sanction of expulsion from this season's tournament, tackle Cardiff Blues in Wales, and how will in-form Edinburgh fare away to Parisian giants Stade Francais?

Brive, too, are back for another crack at European rugby's top club prize. Twelve years after they dazzled Leicester to land the trophy, Brive and their English imports start away against the Scarlets.

Just for good measure, there is a right old tussle in store at Welford Road, where Leicester and the Ospreys will renew their fierce Heineken Cup rivalry.

And what of Toulouse? European champions three times, the French aristocrats will aim to lord it over Pool Five visitors Sale Sharks.

And so the big games will continue to unfold between now and January - Bath versus Stade Francais, Gloucester against Biarritz, Leicester tackling Clermont Auvergne, Toulouse meeting Cardiff and French champions Perpignan hosting Munster, among many others.

Eight of the previous nine Heineken Cup winners - twice champions Wasps being the exception - appear in this season's competition.

And it is difficult to look outside that illustrious group for where the silverware might end up.

Toulouse, as ever, will ooze class and confidence, while Leinster - spearheaded by their mighty British and Irish Lions O'Driscoll, Rob Kearney and Jamie Heaslip - seem set for a powerful title defence.

And Munster appear stronger than ever, with their squad of proven winners now enhanced by the arrival of world-class Springbok centre Jean de Villiers following a victorious Lions series and Tri-Nations campaign.

Irish, undoubtedly, will head the English challenge, so to speak, and Wales have a serious chance of their first Heineken Cup triumph if the star-studded Ospreys can finally soar in Europe.

The Scots, too, cannot be dismissed from the quarter-final equation, especially Edinburgh, whose early Magners League form suggests main pool rivals Bath and Stade Francais face stern tests, especially at Murrayfield.

Such intense rugby, much of it Test match quality, is something the Heineken Cup has delivered consistently.

And as the tournament moves into its 15th season, rugby fans throughout Europe will raise a glass to its continued success.

With such a revered cast list, the Heineken Cup is set to remain pure box office material. It knows no other way.