Those who argue that players alone win big matches and evocative stadiums are simply peripheral lumps of concrete might just have backtracked yesterday had they emerged blinking from the bowels of the Paris metro at Porte de SaintCloud and headed for Parc des Princes, where Leicester and Stade Francais will do battle this afternoon for the Heineken Cup.

France have not played Test rugby at the Parc since 1997 yet the old grey edifice remains the sort of place where neck-hairs rise to attention unbidden. Destiny, though, travels under different passports and speaks assorted languages. In Leicester, following their 1997 final defeat to Brive in Cardiff, the quiet understanding has long been that things will be different next time. The Tigers have never been a club who make the same mistake twice.

Even so, as Dean Richards and Martin Johnson paced the billiard-table surface yesterday it was hard to foresee anything other than a searching afternoon for English rugby's finest.

For Johnson, not to mention Neil Back and Austin Healey, winning this summer's Test series with the Lions will struggle to provide more personal satisfaction than conquering Europe with their oldest rugby mates.

To do so, their defence will need to be at its most unyielding, even if the last three champions of Europe, Bath, Ulster and Northampton, have scored just one try between them in clinching their titles.

The enlightened Pat Howard deserves to go out on a high but no one in the sport would begrudge the gifted Christophe Dominici some sweetness and light at the end of a dark season during which he suffered a nervous breakdown bad enough for doctors to keep him sedated for 11 days.

If neither he, nor Stade, have quite recaptured the form of their best days, a nation still expects. "The whole of France has waited four years for a French team to win the final," said Juillet. The Tiger trap has been set but Leicester are as fit and wily as they come.

LEICESTER: T Stimpson; G Murphy, L Lloyd, P Howard, W Stanley; A Goode, A Healey; G Rowntree, D West, D Garforth, M Johnson (capt), B Kay, M Corry, N Back, W Johnson. Replacedmens: P Freshwater, R Cockerill, R Nebbett, P Gustard, L Moody, J Hamilton, G Gelderbloom.

STADE FRANCAIS: C Dominici; T Lombard, F Comba, C Mytton, A Gomes; D Dominguez, M Williams; S Marconnet, F Landreau, P De Villiers, D Auradou, M James, C Moni, R PoolJones, C Juillet (capt). Replacements: M Blin, P Lemoine, D George, P Tabacco, D Venditti, J Berthe, C Laussucq.