See main article: 2014–15 European Rugby Champions Cup. The 2014–15 European Rugby Champions Cup pool stage was the first stage of the 20th season of European club rugby union, and the first to be organised under the new European Rugby Champions Cup format, which replaced the Heineken Cup as the top European competition for clubs.
It involved 20 teams competing, across 5 pools of 4 teams, for 8 quarter-final places – which were awarded to the 5 pool winners and the 3 top-ranked pool runners-up.
The pool stage began on the weekend of 17–19 October 2014, and was completed on the weekend of 23–25 January 2015.
The 20 teams were seeded through a new system based solely on clubs' performance in their domestic leagues for the previous season, whereas the previous tournament, the Heineken Cup, seeded teams based on performance in European competition over 4 previous seasons.
Where teams were seeded based on play-off performance, if teams were eliminated in the same round of a knock-out tournament, their league position at the end of the regular season determined which team received a higher seed.
| width=5% | Rank | width=19% | Top 14 | width=19% | Premiership | width=19% | Pro 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Leinster Rugby | ||||||
| 2 | Glasgow Warriors | ||||||
| 3 | Munster | ||||||
| 4 |  Ulster | ||||||
| 5 | Ospreys | ||||||
| 6 | Scarlets | ||||||
| 7 |  Benetton Treviso |
Teams were then placed into 4 Tiers, each containing 5 teams, based on their seeding. A draw determined which two second seeded teams completed Tier 1, and based on this, the fourth seeded teams were allocated to either Tier 2 and Tier 3.
The brackets show each team's seeding and their league (for example, 1 Top 14 indicates the team was seeded 1st from the Top 14).
| width=5% | Tier 1 | width=19% | Leinster (1 Pro12) | width=19% | Saracens (1 AP) | width=19% |  Toulon (1 Top 14) | width=19% | Northampton Saints (2 AP) | width=19% | Glasgow Warriors (2 Pro12) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| width=5% | Tier 2 | width=19% | Castres Olympique (2 Top 14) | width=19% | Munster (3 Pro12) | width=19% | Leicester Tigers (3 AP) | width=19% | Montpellier (3 Top 14) | width=19% | Racing Métro (4 Top14) | |
| width=5% | Tier 3 | width=19% | Harlequins (4 AP) | width=19% | Ulster (4 Pro12) | width=19% | Ospreys (5 Pro12) | width=19% | Bath (5 AP) | width=19% | Clermont (5 Top 14) | |
| width=5% | Tier 4 | width=19% | Scarlets (6 Pro12) | width=19% | Sale Sharks (6 AP) | width=19% | Toulouse (6 Top 14) | width=19% | Wasps (7 Play-off) | width=19% | Benetton Treviso (7 Pro12) |
The draw took place on 10 June 2014, at the Stade de la Maladière in Neuchâtel.[1] [2]
Teams played each other twice, both at home and away, in the group stage, that began on the weekend of 17–19 October 2014, and continued through to 23–25 January 2015.[3]
The pool stage of the competition used the same competition point system as previous European competitions, where, based on the result of the match, teams receive:[4]
Based on these competition points, the five pool winners from each group progressed to the quarter-finals, along with the three best pool runners-up from the competition. If at any point in the competition there was a tie between two or more teams from the same pool, the following criteria were used as tie-breakers:[4]
If this did not separate teams, and/or the tie related to teams that did not play each other (i.e., in different pools), the following tie breakers were used:
Fixtures were announced on Thursday 14 August 2014. Alongside the exact dates and kick-off times for rounds 1 and 2.[5] Exact times for Rounds 3 and 4 were announced 10 October 2014, and for Rounds 5 and 6 were announced 19 December 2014.
| Winner of each pool, advance to quarter-finals. | ||
| Three highest-scoring second-place teams advance to quarter-finals. |
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