Antoine Dupont: Toulouse must stay disciplined in Champions Cup final

STAY DISCIPLINED: Antoine Dupont during a Toulouse rugby captain's run at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, England. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

Antoine Dupont has emphasised the importance of Toulouse staying disciplined when they go head-to-head with Leinster in Saturday’s Champions Cup final at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Five-time champions Toulouse have fallen to Leinster in back-to-back semi-finals at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium, conceding more than 40 points to the Irish province on each occasion.

Last season’s 41-22 loss saw both playmaking full-back Thomas Ramos and prop Rodrigue Neti sin-binned and their talismanic captain Dupont said that loss of composure was a key focal point in this week’s preparations for the rematch.

"All the team take experience from the last semi-final, but it’s a final this year,” Dupont said on Friday after leading his team through their eve of match media conference at the state of the art Premier League stadium in north London.

“A different context and I think the discipline is very important in the final stage. Last year, we weren’t good at that and we need to focus on that. After, we will play with intensity and if we are not disciplined it will be very hard.”

Discipline was a subject head coach Ugo Mola also addressed, confirming that Toulouse had enlisted Test referee Mathieu Raynal to address his squad this week.

Raynal took charge of Friday night’s Challenge Cup final between Gloucester and South Africa’s Sharks, also at Tottenham, and Mola said: “We have also approached the refereeing world with the arrival of Mathieu Raynal during the week to give us the opportunity not to lose the match due to indiscipline or things that could escape us.

“We tried to control as many parameters as possible. We know that we can only count on ourselves, on what characterises these players. This ability to take pleasure in playing together. We want to play this match.”

Asked how the outcome against Leinster could be different this time around, the Toulouse boss said: "It's a final, already. We're no longer on the semi-final field. We're not at Leinster. We are on neutral ground.

“This is what could lead us to be rather optimistic. Beyond the opponent, who is more than respectable. They're an incredible team. This is the Ireland team with 90 per cent of its squad. They need no introduction.

“They have this ability to play together, with a gameplan that is a bit formatted for their own rhythm. We're focused on ourselves and what's certain is that we've changed our approach so that we don't think that with the same ingredients, we're going to have a different result.”