Home comfort could swing it for Toulon

There are many ways of building this one up, were that even required, but it’s enough to point out merely that the last of the weekend’s four quarter-finals will bring together the last two Heineken Cup champions.

Questions have been asked about both: whether their best days are behind them or whether they have more to come. Our love of simplicity in sports will dictate that the answers in both cases will be dictated by the final scoreline at Stade Felix Mayol.

That end-of-an-era feeling will be personified in the persons of Jonny Wilkinson and Brian O’Driscoll, whose careers are one last swing of a curtain away from ending, and the stakes are multiplied by the carrot of a ‘home’ semi-final berth for the winner.

Matt O’Connor has opted for Jimmy Gopperth at out-half which, as explained elsewhere in these pages, makes for an interesting choice, and the Kiwi will be expected to keep a cool head in the clamour of one of European rugby’s most fervent grounds.

In Wilkinson and Matt Giteau, Toulon clearly have the edge in terms of the pivotal decision-makers and the French side will bring more beef to the ring as well. The presence of six forwards on their bench and just two backs highlights their expected modus operandi.

In Mathieu Bastereaud they have a midfield battering ram that did serious damage to Ireland at the Stade de France only last month and, in O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy, he will be aiming his bulk at a pair of familiar targets.

Toulon aren’t bulletproof. The front row doesn’t look as menacing without the likes of Andrew Sheridan or Martin Castogiovanni starting and the second row has been hollowed out by the injuries to Bakkies Botha and Ali Williams.

Still, home advantage to shade it.

Verdict: Toulon