The Heineken Cup quarter-finals have found lovelier stages than stadium:mk but the Northampton-Ulster match must be taken seriously according to The Observer's Eddie Butler.
"It is a landmark fixture that pitches former champion against former champion. Twelve years have passed for Ulster and 11 for Northampton since they were Heineken Cup winners, but this is a quarter-final that should be approached respectfully. You don't make the last eight in 2011 lightly.
"And yet, you can't help but chuckle. This is a weekend of grand rugby, of Leinster against Leicester at Dublin's sparkling Aviva Stadium, of Biarritz and Perpignan transporting themselves deep into the spiritual heartlands of the Basque and Catalan peoples: to San Sebastián, a jewel of Europe's Atlantic coast, and Barcelona, giant of the Mediterranean.
"Northampton? Today they're playing at stadium:mk (sic) in Milton Keynes. It's a journey of 10 miles according to my distance-calculator.com, 15 for the Northampton Chronicle & Echo, who wanted to put a little more distance between the destinations when, in 2008 and in a different sport, Northampton Town first played against the MK Dons (once Wimbledon FC) in League One. The tone seemed to be that Northampton had thousands of years of history; MK had Ikea and concrete cows."
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