The road to Murrayfield opened last night with the first round of pool matches of this season's Heineken Cup. It culminates with the final at the home of Scottish rugby next May which will be one of the highlights of the sporting calendar in Scotland.

Every year the competition seems to get better and better: more world-class players, bigger stadia, more drama, but because of this, it gets harder and harder to win it. Before any team can think about lifting the cup they must first get out of the group stages and that is getting tougher and tougher, too.

Look at the teams that did not reach the knockout stages last season, Leicester, Wasps and Stade Francais to name just three, and you see that great teams are not guaranteed to progress.

Some basic rules must be followed in order to qualify from the pool stage. First, you must win your home games. Full stop. Only a couple of teams have ever qualified for the quarter-finals from losing a group match at home because it is very tough to win away from home in the Heineken Cup.

Keeping this in mind, it is imperative you win at least once away from home and take bonus points in the other games.

Four wins give you 16 points minimum and if you can pick up a couple of bonus points away from home, 18 points will get you right in the mix. That's the theory, but the practice is so much harder to achieve.

Both Scottish teams start their campaigns with must-win games or qualification is over at the first hurdle.

Remember my rules?

Edinburgh start with a home game against Leinster and they must win it because if they don't, they would need to win two away games against Wasps, Castres or the Dubliners and that is a big ask.

Edinburgh have to overcome a pretty major psychological hurdle today as they were stuffed by 50 points only a few weeks ago by the same opposition in Dublin.

To have any chance of beating Leinster, you have to stop their back-line playing. If you let the likes of Brian O'Driscoll and Felipe Contepomi have any space whatsoever, they can cut you to shreds. That means the Edinburgh pack must get at least parity against a good pack that has been bolstered by overseas talent since last season.

Big matches demand big performances from big players. Therefore, Mike Blair, Chris Paterson and Ally Hogg must perform at their peak to inspire the rest of the team. They did it last season and they beat Leinster at Murrayfield in the Heineken Cup.

Glasgow, on the other hand, have an away game to start the competition where, ordinarily, winning is not as vital. Only, the game today against the Newport Dragons is crucial because defeat today means they would need to win at Toulouse or Bath to have any chance of getting to 18 points.

Glasgow have been playing okay so far this season, sometimes sublime, as against Scarlets, and sometimes poor, when losing to Connacht. They also have won in Newport already this season and that will give them huge confidence.

The equation for Glasgow's Heineken Cup campaign is quite simple. Win today and they can go on and beat the other teams at home, and be right in the mix come the business end of the group. Lose today, and the only game they win will be at home against the Dragons.

To win any big game, certain units in a team must outperform their opposite numbers. If a back row can dominate the other back row, this can go a long way in determining who wins the match because it allows the half-backs to control the game.

In Kelly Brown, John Barclay and Johnnie Beattie, Glasgow have one of the best trios in the whole Heineken Cup and their dominance today can allow the half-backs to dictate where the game is played.

Both Scottish sides have been horribly inconsistent this season but that means they both can produce the big performances at certain times. If they both find their top games today, I think it could be a great weekend for Scottish rugby, with both teams winning.

As for the eventual winners of the trophy? The usual suspects will be there or thereabouts, such as Munster and Toulouse but I am going to plump for Stade Francais, with the Ospreys as my dark horses.

Whoever wins and whoever they play in the final, buy your tickets now for what will be one of the biggest sporting events of the year.