Le backlash

THEY’RE a special team and a special club, Toulouse, and will be right up there with the likes of Munster, Wasps and Clermont at the business end of the Heineken Cup next year.

Like their coach Guy Novès, there is a certain aura about a glamour club who are perennial front runners in world rugby’s biggest club competition.

Even Declan Kidney was impressed by the shadow the giants of European rugby and Novès cast across Europe in the aftermath of bringing Munster to a second Heineken Cup triumph in Cardiff last May.