The Top 14 final between Toulouse and Bordeaux-Bègles is not just a “simple” Garonne derby relocated to Marseille on Friday: this match, in which an armada of internationals and the famous “Galacticos” will participate, is like a fight between David and Goliath.
. Ogre and “Little Thumb”
On one side of the ring: the Toulouse ogre, defending champion and already with 22 Brennus Shields in his display case, crowned a sixth time in the Champions Cup in the spring and who dreams of a new Europe/Championship double already achieved in 1996 and 2021 because, as his opener Romain Ntamack says: “We are never jaded”.
On the other: Bordeaux-Bègles, the “Little Thumb”, as its pillar Jefferson Poirot described it, fruit of the union in 2006 between Stade Bordeaux and CA Bègles-Bordeaux and of which this is the first final.
As former Stade Toulousain second row Fabien Pelous summed up to AFP, “it’s the opposition between the euphoria of a team that is going to play its first final versus experience.”
So yes, on paper, the Gironde club is the “outsider” in this final. But “in one match, anything can happen”, as scrum half Maxime Lucu said on Thursday, especially since a first title would erase the enormous frustration suffered during the 2019-2020 season, stopped due to Covid while Christophe Urios’ UBB was flying over the championship.
What’s more with the return at the last minute of serious injuries: opener Matthieu Jalibert and pillar Ben Tameifuna are finally in the starting line-up.
. Hares versus tortoise
Also on the menu in Marseille: the best attack of the regular season, Toulouse (765 points), with the icing on the cake being Girondin winger Damian Penaud, second best try scorer of the season (14) and king of “rezoning”.
With its armada of internationals, led by Admiral Antoine Dupont, the club coached since 2015 by Ugo Mola shines with its ability to take advantage of the slightest counter-attack ball, its qualities under high balls and its science of recovery.
Against the Rouge et Noir, the Bordeaux three-quarters Louis Bielle-Biarrey, Nicolas Depoortere and Yoram Moefana are certainly not left out but, in the semi-final against Stade français, they were stolen the show by their pack of forwards, more anonymous, but devilishly effective on carried balls.
This phase of play, a legacy of the legendary Bègles “turtle”, allowed hooker Maxime Lamothe to score twice.
A success appreciated from the end of the match by his coach Yannick Bru who, at the time of returning to the Stade Toulousain where he played most of his playing career, knows more than anyone that UBB will need to “gather (its) forces” on Friday.
. “Don’t make mistakes”
It is a priori not Mola’s style to echo the famous speech of a certain Bernard Laporte, former Béglais, repeating to his players not to “make mistakes”, but he could, so much his players were penalized during the semi-final against La Rochelle.
Out of a total of 15 penalties, the majority were for ground play, for poorly negotiated rucks: “We were very, very bad (…) it’s a big, big, big black mark,” insisted Mola after the match.
A sector that will absolutely have to be improved because we know that the referees are very sensitive to it. As much as on the dangerous tackles or the mood swings, which earned the Rochelais two red cards, changing the course of their semi-final.
Given the stakes, discipline in general will be one of the keys to the match refereed by Ludovic Cayre, as Pelous further clarified to AFP: “frankly, I think that Stade Toulouse has no rival, even if certain elements can disturb things, notably arbitration.
Serge Simon, for his part, is just hoping for “a very, very good final”, he told AFP, “with lots of play and magnificent things”.
bur-lrb/bvo
