"The players are giving 100 per cent but they are not used to the greater intensity and higher quality of opposition. We played Castres in the European Challenge Cup four years ago and beat them over there and here in Treviso so we know a bit about them and their ground.

"That said, they will be keen to build on their solid performance against Wasps. Castres proved they are a strong defensive side with a powerful scrum and they don’t miss many tackles so in many respects we expect them to be fairly similar to Perpignan and another big challenge for us."

Meanwhile, eyes will be on Castres to see whether they decide to eschew the attempt at European glory for the stability of domestic success, but lock Lionel Nallet says that the team is still focussed on European qualification.

Certain defeats can be very deceiving, others just kill the hopes," said Nallet to Le Site of the result against Wasps - a match that could have gone either way right to the end.

"The result is the same, but the match proves that we can do better than we did. It is reassuring, but it doesn’t achieve much. We have to produce the same performance as we did against Wasps.

"We have gone into this competition with intentions. We left no players resting for our trip to London.

"To achieve qualification, we now need pretty much five points every game - it is imperative we take a bonus point every time.

"We want to do something here to make up for our poor domestic start."Form: Neither side has yet got off the mark - Round 1 saw Castres go down to Wasps in Wycombe (19-13) and Treviso lose 25-10 to Perpignan in France. Castres need a win ifthey are toharbour hopes of progressing. They have only survived the group stages once in five campaigns, reaching the semi-finals in 2001/02. Treviso have still to taste play-off action.

Castres Olympique: 15 Jean-Baptiste Peyras Loustalet, 14 Pablo Canavosio, 13 Phil Christophers, 12 Rafael Carballo, 11 Laloaoa Milford, 10 Gordon Ross, 9 Christophe Laussucq, 8 Florian Faure, 7 Julien Puricelli, 6 Alexandre Bias, 5 Karim Ghezal, 4 Pascal Pape (c), 3 Daniel Saayman, 2 Romain Terrain, 1 Carl Hoeft.Replacements: 16 David Roumieu, 17 Jeremy Castex, 18 Rodrigo Capo Ortega, 19 Alex Manta, 20 Jonathan Wisniewski, 21 Laurent Marticorena, 22 Bradley Fleming.

Benetton Treviso: 15 Brendon Williams, 14 Emiliano Mulieri, 13 Andrea Sartoretto, 12 Marius Goosen (capt), 11 Massimiliano Perziano, 10 Andrea Marcato, 9 Fabio Semenzato, 8 Dion Kingi, 7 Zane Ansell, 6 Enrico Pavanello, 5 Michele Sutto, 4 Antonio Pavanello, 3 Pedro di Santo, 2 Franco Sbaraglini, 1 Augusto Allori.Replacements: 16 Gianluca Faliva, 17 Matteo Muccignat, 18 Enrico Ceccato, 19 Marco Pelizzari, 20 Simon Picone, 21 Gabriele Brussolo, 22 Stuart Legg.

Date: Friday, 27 OctoberKick-off: 20:30 (18:30 GMT)Venue: Stade Pierre-Antoine Referee: David Changleng

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