Munster-Toulouse, a classic among old acquaintances
Stade Toulousain breathed a sigh of relaxation on the day of the group draw for this new Euro-African competition renamed Champions Cup. No South African teams on its program of the first phase. The exoticism of a long trip to Cape Town, Durban or Pretoria, it will therefore be for later, perhaps in the spring, if he manages to qualify for the final phase in the same way as the Stormers, the Sharks or the Bulls.
Above all, no need to rack your brains to know how to comment on such a trip without pulling too hard on the strings of players already wrung out by the rhythm of a hectic season. “We are going to let the other French clubs experience their first pitfalls against these South African teams and see how it goes, Toulouse manager Ugo Mola said this week. There will be habits to adopt to properly manage these long trips and their collateral damage. »
Meet on familiar ground
In the meantime, Toulouse is traveling on familiar ground. Fate has reserved for him the English of Sale and, above all, the Irish of Munster, with whom he begins the competition this Sunday. A tantalizing menu that feels like a smooth transition from the world before to the world after. The red and black club will first calibrate themselves against rugby they know like the back of their hand before perhaps, in a few months, to brave the unknown of intercontinental confrontations.
Munster, he masters rather well. He came to win there two seasons ago (2020-2021), in the round of 16 (33-40), the year of his fifth conquest of the trophy. And again last season, in the quarterfinals, at the end of a stunning match which ended in extra time and a suffocating penalty shootout during which Antoine Dupont still held one of the leading roles (24-24, 2 -4 aux tab).
The Munster worn by the Red Army
But what awaits him in Limerick this Sunday will have little to do with what he has been through for the past two seasons. And we are not talking here about this white frost and its negative temperatures which seem to have transformed the fields and forests of this southern province of Ireland into a Christmas decor. No, the difference is that Thomond Park will be full. Not like in 2021, when the meeting took place there behind closed doors because of the Covid. Nor like last spring, when the match was relocated to the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, the lair of Leinster.
This time, the “Red Army” (the famous supporters of the club) will leave the pubs of the city center to invest en masse in the mythical enclosure of Limerick and push there tirelessly behind their team to the sound of heady “Muns-ter!” Muns-ter! Muns-ter! “. “The last time we went to a full Thomond Park, it didn’t go very well, remembers Antoine Dupont. We had taken 40 points (41-16 in the quarter-finals, 2016-2017 season). We know the value of their 16th man. And given our results against their team for two years, he will be ready to receive us. »
Toulouse, the thirst for records
Toulouse will be ready too. So far, he has always been present in the major events in the history of this competition. He was the first to win it (1996), the first to win it three times (2005) then four times (2010), the first (and only to date) to win it five times (2021). It is therefore not forbidden to think that his pride and his thirst for records will push him to try to become the first club to win this new-look event open to South African franchises.
“It’s true that we never missed each other in those moments, Mola admits. Today, the competition is becoming denser and more complex with the arrival of these new teams. It’s necessarily exciting to be able to give yourself the opportunity to measure yourself against them. The sporting appeal is obvious. »
The Stadium also knows the importance of this first phase to prepare well for the rest. Last year, a start to the campaign truncated by the Covid and questionable decisions by the EPCR had forced him into a final phase in the form of an obstacle course where he had left a lot of energy. All it would take is a bad start to send him to South Africa in the round of 16.