Heineken Cup Betting: Could Saracens end England's long wait for a winner?

Wasps celebrate in 2007... the last time an English club conquered Europe

It's six years since an English club last won the Heineken Cup.  Ralph Ellis has been checking out the early injury news and reckons there are good signs for the three who will contest this weekend's quarter-finals

Injuries are a way of life in sport - and especially in a fearsome contact sport like rugby. There are times you watch the Aviva Premiership or Six Nations action and wince at the power of the hits they give and take.

I think it was Jimmy Greaves, in exasperation at seeing another bit of Champions League play acting, who first came up with the axiom that footballers spend 90 minutes pretending they are hurt, while rugby players spend 80 minutes pretending they are not hurt. It's a motto that's become a tee-shirt slogan since, and I heard Sam Tomkins adapt it to Rugby League earlier this year too.

So it was amazing to start doing some checks on form and fitness this morning ahead of this weekend's Heineken Cup quarter-finals and find that Saracens will have a full squad of 45 players to pick from to face Ulster at Twickenham on Saturday evening.

"It's a compliment to our strength and conditioning team," was how director of rugby Mark McCall described it.

He's right - and it is just as much a compliment to the running of a club who have spent years building their infrastructure as well as their team as the key to competing at the highest levels. They put as much energy into developing off the field, bringing through young players and using their new stadium, Allianz Park, to strengthen links with the community, as they do into what happens on it. (I wish, incidentally, that the owners at Vicarage Road had taken some notice of those things before their tenants left. After last night's win at Hull, there's a danger Watford could come into the Premier League bringing no more with them than a squad of loan players and a dilapidated ground with one stand closed).

I digress. Back in January, just before Sarries were about to move into their new Barnet home, I flagged them up as a good bet for the Heineken Cupat a price of 16.015/1. They are now in to 7.06/1, and the fitness bulletin suggests that is still a value price.

In fact McCall is suggesting that all three of the English clubs remaining in the competition are in a healthy state to challenge. England are up to 3.953/1 to provide the winning nationalityin this year's competition and after a six-year break since a Premiership club last triumphed there might not be a better opportunity.

With the atmosphere of a packed stadium at Twickenham, the options to use the depth of their squad from the bench, plus the brilliance of Owen Farrell, Saracens should make it to the semis. Harlequins are also favourites to win their home tie against Munster.  That leaves Leicester who also have little in the way of key players missing as they take on the toughest assignment away to Jonny Wilkinson's Toulon. Their form since getting everybody back after the Six Nations suggests that 5.59/2 for an away win will at least give you a run for your money.

The week-in, week-out physical demands of the Premiership have made it tough for English clubs. The salary cap that encourages too much of our top talent to up sticks and go to France in search of the biggest pay packet has made it tougher still. It needs a bit of luck for our clubs to overcome those hurdles - and the injury bulletins suggest that bit of fortune might just have arrived.