Toulouse, target champion
Friday’s editorial by Léo Faure… Is Toulouse doing too much? The question has been whistling and mocking for several months already in the crossings of the Top 14 stadiums. It invites itself to the refreshments and swells its vindictiveness in the courage of the hops. She returns to the sofas, around the rugby tables and even interferes, sometimes, to the offices of the presidents. So don’t ignore the epigram: you hear it everywhere.
It is the prerogative of the champion. Let us nevertheless avoid this intellectual facility, quickly gathered under the slogan of “France does not like those who succeed”, added to the eternal reference to Poulidor, the second of the people, and Anquetil, the champion of the wealthy.
The reflex relates first to the human character, in its entirety. By nature, the champion annoys and, round target stapled between the shoulder blades, he wanders around with this idea that we are trying to beat him. Or shoot it down. He knows it, because he has not always been a champion and, on the other side of the barrier, he too wanted to be Caliph instead of the Caliph. To defeat the champion is to become a champion in turn. They all dream of it.
In the past, Toulouse has already lived on this throne, comfortable but coveted. He knows the price, the privileges but also the risks. In their time, Agen, Toulon, Paris, Béziers or Lourdes also experienced these hegemonic moments. And the jealousy that comes with it.
This Toulouse stadium is double champion in the Top 14 (2019, 2021) and double champion in 2021 (championship and European Cup). This further widened the circles of the target, to now cover a good part of his back.
With a workforce of four-star internationals and which he partly helped to train, he is legitimate to take a good share of the cake in the recent grand slam of the Blues. Toulouse has stolen none of these honours, on which it is reaping some sweet fruits: renewed popular enthusiasm, a film, an extraordinary media campaign in the world of rugby.
These are all sources of motivation for his opponents. And this target, still there, behind his back, still growing. Result: a defeat at home, last Saturday against Ulster, in what was the first “big” game of his season. According to the players, it was their best performance of the year. We follow them on this terrain, which gives them confidence and strength. But the ball rebounds suddenly fled their hands; the winds have sometimes been against them; extra efforts were not always made.
The adversary, above all, was simply better. And superb. It will be just as much this Saturday, on the formidable “Crow Hill” of Belfast, for the revenge. Toulouse, now forced into the exploit, will have to come out with a match of champions if he intends to stay alive, in a European competition which has crowned him five times kings. His throne is at this price. Does he still have enough appetite to resist the Northern Irish assaults? We will know soon.