Will Greenwood believes that Leinster and Munster can stop the French charge in Europe © Getty Images

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Players/Officials: Shaun Berne | Will Greenwood | Paul O'Connell | Ronan O'Gara

Tournaments/Tours: Heineken Cup

Teams: Biarritz | France | Ireland | Munster | Perpignan | Stade Français | Toulouse

Will Greenwood has hailed Munster's 37-14 victory over Perpignan at the Stade Aime Giral as the finest so far in this season's Heineken Cup.

The former England centre, a Rugby World Cup-winner in 2003, believes that the two-time champions' silencing of the vociferous Perpignan crowd eclipsed Clermont Auvergne's blast against Leicester in round three and announced them as genuine contenders for Europe's top prize once again.

"They out-muscled a team that never gets out-muscled and they showed cunning and guile," he told ESPNscrum. "They had head-butts thrown at them, they kept their calm, they kept their nerve and they got under Perpignan's skin.

"Paul O'Connell was magnificent, RO'G [Ronan O'Gara] did what he does best and kicked some great kicks and when he got sin-binned Paul Warwick stepped in at fly-half, put a killer pass in and a little kick in to the corner. They just cranked up the pressure on Perpignan to play from deep.

"David Wallace was very modest at the end; he said it could have gone either way. It was only ever going one way. They could have played for another week; Munster would have won that game."

The game's pivotal moment arrived midway through the second-half, when Munster's under-pressure Springbok recruit Jean de Villiers crashed over for a potentially season-defining try after being named on the bench behind Keith Earls and Lifeimi Mafi.

"He's come in on the back of a massively long season and struggled to find his feet," Greenwood said. "He's been dragged back into the South Africa team on the bench against Ireland and it's taken him a bit of time to get settled. It was classic de Villiers, the step off the right, a powerful hand-off and the understanding that as long as he didn't drop the ball he was going to score. So many people would have been trying to hand off or fend, just trust that at 16 stone you're going to get there.

"Earls showed some great pace and it gives them some options in that midfield to mix it up. If de Villiers can return to some of the form we know he's capable of, that allows Earls to switch to the wing or Mafi to switch back to outside-centre where he's a bit more comfortable. Winning the Heineken is a strong squad effort, if Jean de Villiers had been performing badly it would have been a massive amount of pressure on Earls and Mafi."

Greenwood was also impressed by reigning champions Leinster, who backed-up a vital away win over the Scarlets with a rollicking bonus-point effort against the Llanelli side at the RDS on Saturday. He reserved special praise for stand-in fly-half Shaun Berne after he deputised ably for the injured Jonny Sexton in both ties.

"They played with width, variety and tempo," he said. "I still don't understand why Bath let Berne go. He can play 10, 12 or 13 and slot in at fullback. His goal-kicking wasn't superb but he handled well and is a classic Australian, if it's on from my dead-ball line I'll go, he picks his moments to play and stands flat, a good, good player."

With the tournament rapidly approaching the end of the group stages, Greenwood sees the onus falling on Munster and Leinster to combat a French surge in the knock-out stages. Stade Francais, Toulouse, Biarritz and Clermont are all well placed in their respective groups and will be eyeing home quarter-finals.

"Stade Francais and Toulouse look in pretty good shape without having to do too much.," he said. "Biarritz are still difficult to judge. They haven't had a difficult group and they started well in the French championship but have tailed off recently. You shut Dimitri Yachvili down and I'm still not convinced. Biarritz have done too much negative damage with their style in the past two or three years for me to be convinced that winning their group makes them one of the favourites.

"I think that with Clermont, everyone will be looking over their shoulders at what they do. If Clermont get 10 points from their last two games and get a home quarter-final, no-one will want to play those guys. With Leinster at home to Brive, that gives them 20 points, London Irish have got all the work to do to make the last round competitive. At this stage you'd say it was Ireland versus France."

Will Greenwood is a Heineken ambassador. Heineken are proud to be celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Heineken Cup, the best club rugby competition in the world. www.heinekenrugby.co.uk.