By Tournament / Heineken Cup

Round two has been and gone and so has a few of the pre-tournament outsiders. What's becoming more and more evident is that the top table of European rugby is fully-booked with former champions and finalists hogging the limelight. Apart from Wasps and Brive that is...

15. Lionel Beauxis (Stade Francais) Counter attacking Frenchman was immense with boot and ball in hand.

14. Johne Murphy (Leicester Tigers) A first hat-trick since college made up for last week's errors

13. Brian O'Driscoll (Leinster) Might be knocking on but his imagination and strength is still as sharp as ever.

12. Luke Fitzgerald (Leinster) Ireland's new kid on the block showed up better England's best Riki Flutey.

11. Napolioni Nalaga (Clermont Auvergne) Pipped Leigh Halfpenny as the Fijian nemesis continually punched holes in the Montauban defence.

10. Ronan O'Gara (Munster) As specialists subjects go, Ronan's is the Heineken Cup and match-winning performances.

9. Danny Care (Harlequins) The jack in the box must be a shoo-in for the England number nine jersey.

8. Sergio Parisse (Stade Francais) Surely worth a fiver for the IRB Player of the Year?!

7. David Wallace (Munster) Simply everywhere proving that age holds no boundaries for the Irish warrior.

6. Alan Quinlan (Munster) If Duracell need an ambassador then the battery-powered tackle machine would be a good bet.

5. Paul O'Connell (Munster) If Brian O'Driscoll's favourite for the Lions armband then Paul's strawberry blonde!

4. Donnacha O'Callaghan (Munster) If you pick one, then you've got to choose the other partner in burglary crime.

3. Carlos Nieto (Glouceter) A try assist is a rare thing for any prop, especially when he's dynamic in the loose, prominent in the scrum and on the losing side.

2. Dimitri Szarzewski (Stade Francais) Will Skinner says he's the most beautiful rugby player he's ever seen.

1. Matt Stevens (Bath) Martin Johnson needs his star performer to keep up the good work.

Sheer heroical stuff from the Gwent boyos. Down to 14-men on a couple of occasions, flank-duo Joe Bearman and Colin Charvis were running on empty by the end of the game, chasing the very same blue shadows that have scored 16 tries so far this season. Next week, attacking practice.

Only hours after Bernard Hopkins' demolition of Kelly Pavlik, another future 'hall of famer' showed hopeful pretenders to the throne that age and savvy are irreplaceable. If the street-fighters from Limerick do retain their title, this Irish dynasty will go down in rugby folklore.

Charlie Hodgson's belated entrance almost inspired victory after an earlier double knockdown but seasoned old-heads of the engine room, Donnacha O'Callaghan, Paul O'Connell and the immense David Wallace showed it will take some wrestling to loosen the red machine's grip on glory.

Another truckload of guts and bags of determination only served as more evidence that pluckiness doesn't win you games in Europe. Fijian firecracker Napolioni Nalaga tearing down the left-flank was an instrumental feature throughout and yielded two match-winning scores.