Toulouse has become synonymous with heartbreak around these parts.
In the last two seasons, Munster’s European campaign has come to an end at the hands of Le Rouge Et Noir. It was close in 2021 but we had no idea what close was. It took 100 minutes of heart-stopping tension and a penalty shootout to finally separate these grand old giants of the Heineken Cup a year later in the Aviva Stadium and I’m still not right after it. In a way, neither side was.
The effort Munster expended to try and win that game essentially “killed” that Munster team both in concept as a four year project and, specifically, for the season. We tried to get ourselves going again for the URC run-in but we were gone – done – and we limped to a terrible seasonal finish with nothing in the tank mentally, spiritually or physically.
Toulouse won that game but their victory was ultimately phyricc in nature. They were an exhausted force after 12 hard weeks in a row – this played a part in how close we pushed them too – and that quarter-final against Munster left them shattered. They looked like a second rate outfit a week later against a Leinster side that was, relatively speaking, fresh as a daisy after a routine win over a callow Tigers side that weren’t even half as physical as they thought they were.
In the TOP14 that season, Toulouse ultimately qualified for the barrage stage of the competition in 4th after a late surge where they beat La Rochelle (again) before losing to Castres in the semi-finals, who Munster beat home and away in the European Cup.
For the last few seasons, Munster and Toulouse just can’t seem to be intertwined with each other so it was no surprise at all to see us drawn into the same group as them ahead of this season. It was always going to happen. It seems like we are destined to do this forever.
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The Aviva Stadium isn’t Thomond Park. An empty Thomond Park isn’t Thomond Park either. This is the first time Toulouse will have played in the House of Pain on the Cratloe Road since getting walloped 41-16 by a resurgent Munster side under Rassie Erasmus in the spring of ’17.
A lot like ourselves in the last few sesons, that was a Toulouse side that needed to die to become a team that could challenge at the top of Europe and France consistently once again. When you look at the squad that Munster beat that day you see a few familiar names in the wider Toulouse of 2022 – although only Dorian Aldegheri, Julien Marchand and Cyrill Baille feature in the matchday squad due to a François Cros injury – but expecting Munster to win with a similar points differential on Sunday would be the stuff of dreams. Fever dreams.
But that’s the hope baked into this tournament. This Toulouse side is better than what we played last year or the year before. They aren’t unbeatable, far from it, but it will be the biggest challenge posed to this new group this season by some distance.
Can we make the Thomond Park factor count? We’ll find out soon enough.
Toulouse: 15. Thomas Ramos; 14, Ange Capuozzo, 13. Dimitri Delibes, 12. Pita Ahki, 11. Matthis Lebel; 10. Romain Ntamack, 9. Antoine Dupont (c); 1. Rodrigue Neti, 2. Julien Marchand, 3. Dorian Aldegheri; 4. Richie Arnold, 5. Emmanuel Meafou; 6. Anthony Jelonch, 7. Alban Placines, 8. Alexandre Roumat.
Replacements: 16. Peato Mauvaka, 17. Cyril Baille, 18. Charlie Faumuina, 19. Thibaud Flament, 20. Yannick Youyoutte, 21. Jack Willis, 22. Martin Page Relo, 23. Lucas Tauzin.
What worked against Edinburgh last Friday will work against this Toulouse side.
It’s why last Friday was so important and why we’ve broadly selected the same side to start this game as we did up in Edinburgh. It is all but impossible to overpower this Toulouse side without guys like Snyman and Edogbo – indeed an entirely different pack build – but I don’t think you need to do that to beat them.
You need to be able to resist their physicality, of course. That is especially true in the scrum and we’ve selected a starting front row to do just that in a way that we weren’t able to do in the first half of last season’s game in the Aviva. If that front-row selection can hold, it’ll go a long way to keeping Toulouse’s drive and maul off penalty lineouts out of the game. What we don’t want is for the scrum to go sour on a day when there’ll be a lot of cold hands handling a wet, even colder ball.
Controlling the sequence of the game against Toulouse is hugely important. Without that, we will perenially be on the back foot against an incredibly complete side who have packed almost every area of the game with Answer players.
Think you have a question? Toulouse have players to answer it.
Want to kick long? They’ve got Ange Capuozzo, Matthis Lebel, Dimitri Delibes, Thomas Ramos, Romaine Ntamack and Antoine Dupont adding a massive combined threat if you want to play a longer counter-transition game against them. Want to play off-ball rugby against them? They have the heft to play on-ball, keep it really tight and punish you physically. Want to keep it tight off #9 and roll across their defence looking for position? They have the defensive impact and poaching ability – especially off the bench – to essentially play off-ball, kick-pressure rugby if they so choose.
So where does that leave Munster?
We have to be a blend of all of these areas of the game, which sounds stupidly obvious but there are some teams you can take a dedicated approach against and there are some teams that you just have to be brave and see what pictures Toulouse show us in tandem with the referee. We saw last week (and last season)that Christophe Ridley rewards possession and is semi-reluctant to reward all but the most obvious of poaches, so that should/could nerf some of Toulouse’s off-ball game and reward the high-tempo possession game that we’ve been building this season. For me though, the biggest gains to be made are in the one area where Toulouse aren’t elite in my opinion – their transition defence.
Toulouse play big and that comes with huge advantages but drawbacks too. You can’t really “tire out” a big team anymore, especially a side like Toulouse who rock up to this game with a 6/2 split. What you can do is tire out and attack forwards mid-sequence so, for example, on a high tempo six or seven-phase sequence with a lot of staggered screens to draw out and unbalance Toulouse’s heavy defensive rotation of Neti, Aldergheri, Arnold and Meafou. These players will hurt us in contact but they have to be covered by laterally quicker defenders. So we’ll want to hit the 15m channel, pull Alban Placines or Anthony Jelonch to the edge and then look to use Casey’s width and pace on the pass to hit beyond the “C” defender – ideally one of Meafou or Arnold or Aldergheri – for a further tip on or screen ball to a layered runner. This will open up lanes for outside forwards or looped/screen runners to attack in quite central areas but the biggest area to get at Toulouse is in the aftermath of one of their kicks upfield.
We need to attack their “anchors”.
This will exaggerate the natural compressions their size gives up on phase play but directly after they’ve moved up the field themselves by their own actions. Toulouse have kick as part of their core plan and the will use a mixture of ranges but they tend to go mid-range and longer as of late. This burns out their pack – as it always does to any pack regardless of who does it – but they have a 6/2 split to combat this.
We need to be brave on the longer transitions they give us, hit the middle of the field, take on their heavy anchors – Meafou and Arnold – and then look for the edge space they give us. There’s an intercept threat here because they’ll go for broke if they see that overlap but if we’re accurate, there are huge gains to be made in the edge spaces.
Be brave and there are scores out there for us.
