Whoever came up with the advertising slogan was not only inspired but prescient. Originally it was just the beer talking but now it's the rugby.

The events of last weekend proved yet again that Heineken really does refresh the parts that other tournaments cannot reach.

The hastily cobbled together international "Challenge Series" of the autumn, played for newly invented trophies – some of them only weeks old – are over, and the painful memories of the dour, drab and defeat-ridden rugby played by everybody except Wales have been supplanted in just over a week by the dazzling, different and all together exhilarating array of matches served up by the third round of this year's elite European competition.

And the announcement during the week that Heineken was to renew their sponsorship for another four years was a deserved reward for the faith that the company has always shown in the competition.

That faith was not always shared by the participating unions – England and Scotland declined to participate in the first Heineken competition back in 1995-96 – nor by the clubs. The English clubs were again absent from the tournament in 1998-99 during one of the many club versus country rows that bedevilled the sport.

But the sponsors kept the faith even though their impact in France was inevitably diminished by a government ban on alcohol advertising.

Their belief never wavered even when the terrestrial broadcasters backed away – ITV, during one of those rare periods in its history when it had both the money and the inclination to invest in rugby, broadcast the first final, and the BBC scored a spectacular own goal when withdrawing from the bidding in the early part of this decade.

The crowd for the first final – in which Toulouse beat Cardiff – was paltry. Thereafter the attendance figures have only gone sharply upwards. Last year's final – again featuring Toulouse but this time on the losing end to Munster, a team even more synonymous with the Heineken Cup than their thrice champion opponents – was played to a packed Millennium Stadium.

Twickenham has also been filled to the rafters for the showpiece occasion and so have the much smaller Lansdowne Road and Parc des Princes.

Murrayfield – which was unfortunate enough to host the final when it was an all-French affair between Stade de France and Toulouse in 2005 – was the exception, but such is the confidence in the event's attraction that, despite the downturn in the economy, the Scottish capital has been given the chance to make amends this season.

That confidence was shown to great effect in last weekend's extraordinary spectacle at the Stade de France. The national stadium in Paris was filled with cancan dancers, acrobats, jousting knights and performing eagles as well as a record 75,000 fans for a pool game, as Harlequins hung on in an electrifying finish to down Stade Francais.

Wasps, who used the Ricoh Arena in Coventry for last year's pool game against Munster, are setting their sights even higher in January when they host Leinster at Twickenham, which is also going to be used by Harlequins for a Premiership match against Leicester at the end of this month.

You can see the money men's point. Big stadiums lead to big money at the gate even if, like Stade Francais, you cut the entrance fee. Small stadiums may, as did the Recreation Ground at Bath for that extraordinary and absolutely gripping game against Glasgow, provide an unrivalled atmosphere, but they don't do as much for the bottom line.

Although the risks in taking a match away from the traditional club ground are now next to minimal, they are risks nevertheless. Those brave enough to take the gamble – and I'm still hoping that Bath will be equally audacious when Toulouse come calling in January – deserve whatever spoils come their way.