Toulouse: Fifty weeks of waiting for redemption
MAN FOR THE BIG OCCASION: Antoine Dupont during a Toulouse captain's run at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
TOULOUSE’S tale of two seasons reaches a crucial point in Dublin on Saturday - a high-stakes shot at redemption at the scene of an earlier low-point.
Fifty weeks after they lost 40-17 to Leinster in the 2022 Champions Cup semi-final, the five-star side from France’s Top 14 return to the Aviva for the rematch. They appear better prepared, better rested, motivated and more confident.
This - more than the absence of Johnny Sexton and James Lowe and how Leinster’s gameplan may be affected as a result; or lessons from this year’s Six Nations match in Dublin and La Rochelle’s win in Marseille last year - will be the crucial factor in Toulouse’s performance.
Toulouse accept they were a long-way second best on that Saturday in May 2022. How could they not?
“I coach a group that does not have amnesia - the players know what we went through,” head coach Ugo Mola said. “The lesson we had to endure that day … our opponents were much faster and more accurate than we could have been at that time.”
But, he added: “That was a year ago, almost to the day - and things have changed.”
How much has been learned remains to be seen, he acknowledged. “Based on what they have said this week, Leinster are confident in their strengths, in their rugby, and I understand that.
“Leinster taught us to be better [last year]. [They] helped us grow. Will we be better than them on Saturday? We have done everything we can.”
Four weeks after last season’s Champions Cup exit in Dublin, Toulouse lost a Top 14 semi-final to derby rivals Castres in Nice - the twin titles they had proudly held from the previous campaign slipping from their grasp in the penultimate round of both competitions within a month.
For trophy magpies like Toulouse, and Leinster for that matter, blank seasons need to be written off at the earliest opportunity. Falling from domestic and Champions Cup title holders in 2021 to zero silverware in 2022 hit hard at Ernest Wallon, just as missing out on both URC and European trophies hurt at the RDS. For both sides there are perceived wrongs to right.
That’s more than enough motivation, let alone the fact it’s the semi-final of one of the biggest club rugby competitions in the world against the best rugby side in Europe.
Leo Cullen addressed that point earlier this week.
“We’re up against the best teams in Europe; Toulouse are the most successful team in the competition. They lost at this stage last year,” he said.
“What do you think their motivation is? It’s through the roof.”
His aim was to play down heightened perceptions of Leinster’s trophy chances - which remain high, let’s make no bones about it. But he wasn’t wrong about Toulouse.
There’s another factor, too, beyond vaulting ambition. Last May’s semi-final against Leinster was Toulouse’s 14th match in as many weeks. Their expected Six Nations international breaks - when a sizable cohort of their squad were absent on international duty - were filled by rescheduled Top 14 matches following a Covid-19 outbreak at the club around Christmas.
Between December 4, 2021, and semi-final day on May 14, 2022, Toulouse won just five of 18 matches, playing for a long part of it with a reduced squad - and had two Champions Cup home games cancelled because of Covid.
AT the start of that run, they were second in the Top 14, with nine wins from 11. By the end of it, they had fallen to sixth and risked missing out on the domestic play-offs altogether.
Mola felt unable to give his returning Grand Slam winners a break.
The week after France claimed the Six Nations title in Saint-Denis, all eight of Toulouse’s France internationals were in the squad for a Top 14 match they should probably have been excused against Lyon. Every one of them played at least half an hour.
The following weekend, seven of Toulouse’s Grand Slam eight started at Castres. Then, the fixture list gave them the comeback Champions Cup round-of-16 double-header against Ulster, domestic matches against Toulon and La Rochelle, the Munster quarter-final … and Leinster away.
“For the 2021-2022 season, we had the France Grand Slam. Many of our players were very much in demand,” Mola said. “Then there was the [Champions Cup] triptych, when we played Ulster, Munster and then Leinster in four weeks away from home. We didn’t necessarily take the right options.”
That’s a guarded way of admitting, again, his players were beyond knackered this time last year.
WHAT he didn’t say, what he didn’t need to add was that, this season, Toulouse have already qualified for the play-offs with three rounds of the regular season remaining - they’re the only side to have done so. They have not had to deal with a Covid outbreak. They have had breaks as scheduled during the international windows. And Ugo Mola has been able to rotate his squad more effectively.
Stars Antoine Dupont, Thibault Flament, Francois Cros, Romain Ntamack, and Thomas Ramos have been involved in three matches since the end of the Six Nations, while Peato Mauvaka has played in four. And, they were all rested last week, for Toulouse’s trip to Stade Francais - as were lock duo Richie Arnold and Emmanuel Meafou, and international centre Pierre-Louis Barassi.
As winger Matthis Lebel - who stayed at home last week, too - said: “Last season was endless. Like the one before. The current campaign, we knew how to take it … to be able to manage our freshness.” Even so, he, like his coach, made it clear Toulouse are fully aware of exactly who lies in wait at the Aviva, and the level they need to compete.
“We know the club’s aims, in the Top 14 and in the Champions Cup,” Lebel said. “We’re going to play the best team in Europe. We want to face teams like this. These players make up the best squad in the world.” “On Saturday, no one can be at 80 percent. The whole group has had to be at their best in training [this week], not just the starting 15 or the matchday 23 - otherwise, it will be a very long afternoon in Dublin.”
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