Stade Toulousain: “When you look at the rhythm of the matches …” How Toulouse will try to manage an infernal calendar
A qualification and questions… By offering themselves the advantage of receiving in the eighth and quarter-finals of the Champions Cup, the Toulousains, if they beat the Bulls, also know that their spring calendar will specifically become denser .
By inheriting the Bulls as opponents in the round of 16, Toulouse will face the exoticism desired by the organizers of the Champions Cup who have integrated the South African provinces into the continental competition this season.
“Finally! To be there, might as well see them again and see Jake White again (the team coach based in Pretoria, editor’s note) since I have kept some contact with him”, commented Ugo Mola, but not unhappy to have stopped a round trip in the southern hemisphere and to host the first match of this unprecedented edition.
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And to congratulate himself on seeing his troop compete when others have sunk: “We realize that in our group, we had the European champion, the English champion, the Celtic league champion, the French champion and that we end up being second so it’s rather positive. It’s a real performance even if I think we had the material to be first. We also realize that the French teams had a lot to do in the other group by not qualifying. It’s dense and the South African teams have certainly upset the European chessboard.”
Without wanting to project too far, the “red and black” manager was however well aware that the second place occupied by his team after the narrow success against Munster sent him to the table of the scarecrow of this edition, Leinster, for a possible remake of last year’s semi-final at the Aviva, where the Stadium had exploded and where the final is scheduled.
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“We lost first place to Sale (by not taking the attacking bonus, editor’s note), regretted Mola. It is difficult to see in view of the group stage how Leinster will not be in the semi-finals at home and in the final at home. It’s tailor-made to embroider the fifth star but last year, La Rochelle made an XXL final, so in this game, nothing is ever certain.
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A distorted Top 14?
Each chosen in his time indeed, even if the boss of the sportsman saw a wolf in the weak French presence in the final stages. “What is certain is that there are a lot of French teams out in the Champions Cup, which will most certainly distort our famous Top 14 a little bit, he said. When you look at the rhythm of the matches, it there will be teams that will have a lot of rest when others will be on deck, I hope for a long time.
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Or how the calendar bring up to date the eternal and insoluble problem of, even if La Rochelle and Montpellier also find themselves confronted with it and that we can hope that Lyon will defend their title in Challenge, Toulon and the Stade Français – who compete in the round of 16 – not going there to make up the numbers while Racing 92, reversed in the second competition, will not be comfortable with a trip to South Africa. For Bordeaux-Bègles, Clermont and Castres on the other hand, this could be a boon.
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The CO will also receive its neighbor Toulouse between the Tournament and the round of 16 of the Cup. Something to make Mola talk. “We are going to Castres when we leave the Tournament, which is, as it happens, a habit in the calendar, tickled the Haut-Garonne manager. I find it difficult to understand this form of chance in the calendar which is still very well thought out by some and a little less by others. Afterwards, maybe this will prepare us for the European Cup games on the ground game and the ability to be more precise in certain sectors.
From there to think that chance does things well…
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