One wonders if Stade Toulouse played the same sport as Union Bordeaux-Bègles, last night in Marseille.
And at the same time, did Antoine Dupont’s teammates simply play the same sport as the other thirteen Top 14 teams throughout the season? We can’t answer without being a bit categorical…
But this Friday, facing a haggard, completely amorphous Gironde team, the Rouge et Noir, like an exercise that they mastered from the first to the last second, offered yet another fireworks display.
A success without suspense (59-3), marked by 9 tries (!), which allowed them to win the 23rd Brennus in their history.
For comparison, Béziers is the second most successful team with… 11 championship titles. Mind-blowing.
Jalibert, the false good idea
But it must be said that yesterday, the people of Toulouse decided to do absolutely everything well. Unless it’s the people of Bordeaux who have decided to take it upon themselves?
It is difficult to consider – even if it is always easier to have a moralizing tone after the meeting – that the return from the dead of Matthieu Jalibert (victim of a tear on June 8, and who himself had announced its end of the season) was a good idea… And as was the case with the unrecognizable Ben Tameifuna (also returned urgently for the final), the Bordelais appeared disoriented.
As if lost, in the middle of a Vélodrome won over to the Toulouse cause (read next page). Because they lacked experience, for the first final in the history of the UBB (since the merger of Bordeaux and Bègles, in 2008).
Because they had a clear talent deficit. Or because they seemed out of breath, never managing to rediscover the rugby movement that had allowed them to reach this final…
In any case, Yannick Bru’s players were overwhelmed from all sides, during a final in which they never seemed to be actors. Martyred in conquest, in the ground game, at large, undisciplined (10 fouls), clumsy, the Bordelo-Béglais thus never caught a glimpse of even a centimeter of the Brennus. In a brutal manner, but without it being really surprising in view of the season, the piece of wood therefore (once again) returned to Toulouse. For the fourth time in the last five seasons.
You’re talking about hegemony, for a team that also managed to win the Champions Cup at the beginning of the month? We think we can safely speak of unchallenged reign.
This Toulouse stadium is immense, and the humiliation experienced this Friday evening by the Union Bordeaux-Bègles will go down in the history of French rugby…
 and offers itself a new Brennus Shield){kind=link}