Challenge Cup Final/Harlequins v Montferrand: Former England hooker Richard Cockerill wants to provide Montferrand with a fitting farewell before heading home at the end of the season.

The star-studded French club take on Harlequins in the Parker Pen Challenge Cup final at Reading's Madejski Stadium today and Cockerill is well aware that victory represents their only chance of playing in the Heineken European Cup next season.

"It's the only way we can qualify," said the 33-year-old, who is joining the Leicester coaching set-up in the summer.

"Montferrand are a massive club and to fulfil our potential we need to be playing in Europe. Domestically we have not been good this season but this is a great outlet for us and a great way to qualify."

He knows that could mean sending his old England team-mate Jason Leonard - named on the Harlequins bench - into retirement with a defeat at the end of a distinguished career which saw the veteran prop win a world record 113 caps, plus five for the British and Irish Lions.

Cockerill, who packed down alongside Leonard in the majority of his 27 appearances in the England front row, said: "Jason has been a fantastic player, you can't say enough about what he's done."

But the beer and the back-slapping will have to wait and Cockerill, who has taken the opportunity to spy on Harlequins on his visits to England, warned that the French giants are running into form at exactly the right time.

HARLEQUINS: G Duffy; G Harder, W Greenwood, M Deane, U Monye; P Burke, S Bemand; M Worsley, T Fuga, J Dawson, S Miall, J Evans, P Sanderson, A Vos (capt), T Diprose. Replacements: J Hayter, C Jones, J Leonard, B Davison, L Sherriff, S Keogh, A Dunne.

MONTFERRAND (from): A Floch, S Viars, A Rougerie, R Chanal, T Marsh, S Kuzbik, D Bory, G Merceron, J Gendre, P Mignoni, J Moreau, C Soulette, L Emmanuelli, D Attoub, O Azam, R Cockerill, E Pearce, T Privat, L Vaitanaki, H Louw, A Audebert, M Raynaud, E Vermeulen, O Magne.

Referee: N Whitehouse (Wales).