Thomas Siniecki, Media365: published on Thursday, May 19, 2022 at 11:56 p.m.

Between Lyon, Toulouse and La Rochelle, from fifth to seventh place, three teams stand in one point. Each of these three teams has no real choice but to win their last two games in the Top 14. Starting with the champion…

The Toulousains therefore do not retain their two crowns of champion of France and Europe, since their continental course came to an abrupt end last week in the semi-finals on the ground of Leinster (40-17). Enough for a surplus of motivation in the Top 14, potentially five games away from a new title (two in the regular seasons, three with the play-offs then semi-finals and final)? Only physical condition will tell. “The season is starting to be long for some, confirms Virgile Lacombe, assistant coach of the forwards. So we spend a lot of time recovering all week… Coming back from Ireland, we took a day and a half of recovery, but we can’t do without training on the basics of our rugby either.”

This is the whole dilemma of this end of the season, with next week already awaited with great impatience, since it will be without a match due to the European finals (La Rochelle will be concerned in the Champions Cup, Toulon and Lyon in the Challenge Cup ). “We take the risk of doing slightly shorter sessions in order to get some freshness. We will not rotate, because we cannot afford it. We will allow the most efficient team.” An example title, Brive opener Enzo Hervé played the equivalent of eight games less than Romain Ntamack (1,880 minutes), adding international matches for the latter. And it is in Brive, in the fight to maintain, that Toulouse will be forced to seek a result on Saturday to stay in the top 6 before the last day, tied on points with seventh La Rochelle.