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The Investec<\/a> Champions Cup<\/a> is back for another season as the best rugby union teams in Europe and South Africa do battle to be crowned continental champions.<\/p>\n Bordeaux Begles are reigning champions<\/a>, after beating Northampton Saints<\/a> 28-20 in a tense final <\/a>to claim the first major trophy in their history back in May, and the French side opened their title defence with an excellent win over the Bulls in Pretoria. Northampton also begin their campaign on the road, with a hop across the Channel to face Pau.<\/p>\n The road to Bilbao, where the final will take place next spring, starts now with the pool stage consisting of four groups of six and the top four from each group going through to the last 16 \u2013 with the top two in each pool earning a home tie, while the third- and fourth-placed sides will be playing away.<\/p>\n French giants Toulouse<\/a>, who host the Sharks in round one, and Leinster <\/a>\u2013 who beat Harlequins at the Aviva Stadium \u2013 are joint favourites with the bookies to win the competition and the likes of Bordeaux, Bath and La Rochelle also fancied to do well.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s everything you need to know:<\/p>\n How to watch<\/p>\n Viewers in the United Kingdom can watch every match in the Investec Champions Cup live on Premier Sports. with either Premier Sports 1, Premier Sports 2 or Premier Sports Rugby showing each clash. A live stream of every game is also available via the Premier Sports website.<\/p>\n Full schedule for round one of Investec Champions Cup<\/p>\n Friday 5 December<\/p>\n Sale Sharks 21-26 Glasgow Warriors<\/p>\n Bayonne 17-26 Stormers<\/p>\n Saturday 6 December<\/p>\n Saracens 47-10 Clermont Auvergne<\/p>\n Bulls 33-46 Bordeaux Begles<\/p>\n La Rochelle 39-20 Leicester Tigers<\/p>\n Leinster 45-28 Harlequins<\/p>\n Scarlets 16-17 Bristol Bears<\/p>\n Bath 40-14 Munster<\/p>\n Sunday 7 December<\/p>\n Pau v Northampton Saints – 1pm, Premier Sports 2<\/p>\n Toulouse v Sharks – 3.15pm, Premier Sports 1<\/p>\n Gloucester v Castres – 3.15pm, Premier Sports 2<\/p>\n Edinburgh v Toulon – 5.30pm, Premier Sports 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-332210","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}