Sun, sea and San Sebastien has made for an unusual preamble to the last of the quarter-finals, which brings together the respective league leaders from England and France in northern Spain. Although Chabal has been on hand in practice as a useful defensive nuisance, he has repented mostly at leisure the five-week suspension. He was sent off at Wasps in the Premiership for stamping on Lawrence Dallaglio . . . that was two weeks' worth . . . and got three more weeks for spitting at Fraser Waters during his march from the field. The ban is up tomorrow.

"I'm sorry but if Dallaglio did the same, he'd have had a yellow card, " said SaintAndre. "Because it was Chabal he had a red card. When you watch it on the video he didn't deserve it. Thanks to England, one of our key players will be qualified to play the day after this game."

Then there's Sheridan, suffering a pain in the neck in every sense with a prolapsed disc which Sale claim occurred in England training before the gargantuan back-rower was cleared to play 70 minutes of the match against Ireland. The RFU deny any such misdiagnosis took place. Unhappy though he is, Saint-Andre can only select Ben Coutts and Chris Jones in the unavailable pair's places, and be thankful that Mark Cueto and Jason Robinson are fit for duty after picking up knocks last week.

"I used to play against Biarritz when they had Serge Blanco but not much else, " said Saint-Andre. "Now they may be the richest club in Europe. Patrice Lagisquet has coached them since 1997, he's a friend and a fantastic coach. And he's got a big squad with 44 full-time players and maybe 28 internationals." For this reason but also a failure to date to reach a European final, Biarritz have been dubbed by their deadly local rivals, Bayonne, as rugby's 'galacticos'. "They are five points clear at the top of the French table, " said Saint-Andre. "Though it's not as interesting as in England because you have three teams . . . Biarritz, Toulouse and Stade Francais . . . who are way in front of everyone else. It's the first time Sale have played one of these teams. We've had no problems against French teams from fifth place downwards but this is different."

Different preparation too.

A smart hotel overlooking San Sebastian and training next door to the 32,000capacity Estadio Anoeta.

There will be 1,000 Sale supporters and 31,000 Basques.

A smaller but similarly hostile crowd at Thomond Park watched Sale submit meekly to Munster in their final pool match in January and toss away a top seeding complete with home quarter-final.

Saint-Andre insists it was both an aberration and a lesson which will help them through today. "I hope we grew up a little bit after that [Munster] game, " he said.

"Biarritz, Munster, Toulouse, Leicester . . . these teams have got used to these big matches." Equally, he knows Biarritz have faltered against Toulouse and Stade Francais, in the Heineken semi-finals of 2004 and 2005.

The analysis suggests that counter-attack is the favourite Biarritz tactic. They have Serge Betsen to win the breakdown, and two wrecking-ball wings in Jean-Baptiste Gobelet and Sereli Bobo who are no less dangerous for being slightly less 'galactic' than Betsen and the quartet of Six Nations winners . . .

Dimitri Yachvili, Damien Traille, Jerome Thion and Thomas Lievremont.

The prize at stake for Sale is a semi-final at the City of Manchester Stadium. Even if they fail there has been good groundwork for the remainder of the Premiership campaign. "The weather has been good here compared with Manchester, " said SaintAndre. "This is the last sprint to the line in our season."

HEINEKEN CUP QUARTER-FINAL BIARRITZ v SALE Estadio Anoeta, 5.00 Sky Sports 2, 4.30