Connacht will face Exeter, Bayonne and La Rochelle in the revamped European Rugby Challenge Cup next season, today's draw in Neuchatel has confirmed.

Connacht ended up in the third tier of seeds after some poor results at the end of the season saw them drop back to 10th in the PRO12. This saw them drawn with the Exeter Chiefs, who finished 8th in the Premiership, disappointing by their recent standards having played in the Heineken Cup the last two seasons, and perennial Challenge Cup participants Aviron Bayonnais, who are on a run of second and third place pool positions in the competition. Connacht beat Bayonne home and away the last time they faced each other in the Challenge Cup, but they may well be a different proposition to their 2010-2011 incarnation, having invested heavily in the interim.

Atlantique Stade Rochelais will be something of an unknown quantity, having won promotion to the Top 14 via the end of season playoffs in PROD2. They recently announced the signing of former All Black Jason Eaton, along with Australian wing Alofa Alofa and Springbok Peter Grant.

Connacht's fate my depend to some extent on the attitude of the French clubs to the competition; both should be beatable but neither can be taken for granted. The Chiefs will without doubt be a challenging prospect at their Sandy Park home and the Clan will be looking forward to welcoming Fetu'u Vainikolo back to the Sportsground, just as the Exeter faithful will be keen to reaquaint themselves with Aly Muldowney.

From a travel point of view, the Connacht faithful can look forward to two jaunts to France's Atlantic Coast, while the trip to Devon may provide welcome relief to those suffering from London fatigue after the last few seasons, for as Samuel Johnson once said: "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of having his bottom handed to him".

Exeter can be reached by direct flight from Dublin, or you can fly from Knock or Shannon to Bristol, an hour away by train.

Bayonne is served by direct flights from Dublin, but these are seasonal, so will only be useful if the away trip is in October. If it falls in December or January, the options would be to fly to Bordeaux or take an indirect flight to Biarritz via Stansted or Paris.

There are no direct flights from Ireland to La Rochelle outside of the main summer season, but Nantes and Bordeaux are well served from Dublin.

The fixture weekends have been announced as:
October 16-19 and 23-26
December 4-7 and 11-14
January 15-18 and 22-25

Fixtures are due to be finalised in July and the Connacht Clan Travel Desk will be busy gathering the vital information to make your trip as hassle free as possible. Keep checking the travel section on connachtclan.com for updates.