[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]T[/su_dropcap]he rebirth of Stade Toulousain in the glorious image of the great sides of their history over the last two or three seasons has been one of the best things about watching French rugby. It’s hard to point to a point to where Toulouse began to move away from what you’d describe as the “Toulouse Way” because the immediate aftermath of their last Heineken Cup win in 2010/11 was followed by back to back bouclier in 2011 and 2012 before entering into what would be considered a relatively lean period by their own glittering standards between 2013 and their recent reemergence in 2018/19 with the failure to even qualify for Europe in 2017 being a definite low point.

Toulouse didn’t disappear completely during that time but you could see that they were a long way removed from the team that had defined what it meant to be a European superpower in the early years of the Heineken Cup.

My two most recent interactions with Toulouse came in the 2013/14 and 2016/17 Champions Cup quarter-finals when they rocked up to Thomond Park twice and got beaten out the gate on both occasions. The Toulouse I saw in both of those quarter-finals was a bad photocopy of the general rugby trends of 2014-2017. They were physically huge – like most French clubs at the time and currently – but they were slow and desperately predictable from an attacking perspective. This was especially true in Munster’s quarter-final win in 2017.

But the roots of Toulouse’s eventual rebirth were sown in the aftermath of this defeat and, in truth, had begun during the offseason of 2016/17. During the summer of 2017, Toulouse signed Antoine Dupont from Castres, Cheslin Kolbe from the Stormers and, as became evident during the U20 Six Nations and World Championships that season, they began to accelerate an 18-year-old Romain Ntamack to the first team.

The summer of 2017 saw a number of their ageing and stylistically unsuitable players heading for the exits. They lost France Thierry Dusautoir, Luke McAlister, Toby Flood, Alexis Palisson, Patricio Albacete, Edwin Maka and Gurthro Steenkamp. The summer of 2018 saw Yann David, Jean-Marc Doussain, Tala Gray, Wandile Mjekevu, Florian Fritz, David Roumieu, Yoann Maestri, Gaël Fickou, Danie Mienie and Semi Kunatani depart the club. That followed up with the departures of Louis Picamoles, David Mélé, Corey Flynn, Romain Millo-Chluski and Imanol Harinordoquy in 2016.

That’s a lot of size, weight and experience in the forwards that the club lost over a three year period but their recruitment addressed that year on year. Toulouse’s statement, key signings in the forwards over the two year period between 2017 and 2018 were Charlie Faumina, Rynhardt Elstadt and Jerome Kaino. Last season they added Rory Arnold from the Brumbies (they’ve also signed his twin brother ahead of next season) and Bastien Chalureau.

With these signings in mind – along with key recruitment and development when it comes to Dupont, Ntamack, Kolbe and Ramos over the same period – what can we learn about the manner in which Toulouse wanted to play?

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If you look at Toulouse’s regular starting lineup in the Champions Cup early this year, you see a few unusual trends. The immediate standout is how relatively small their backline is, collectively. None of their outside backs is any taller than 6’2″ and their heaviest back is their inside centre Pita Ahki at 96kg – hardly a heavyweight. To give you an idea of scale, Robbie Henshaw is 6’3″ and 103kg. Chris Farrell is 6’3″ and 110kg. Manu Tuilagi is 6’1″ but plays at 110kg. There’s nothing wrong with having a smaller roster of backs but it is somewhat of a rarity in the modern game.

That doesn’t mean that Toulouse can’t hit up through Ahki off a full lineout…

… but this relatively rare against bigger opponents. Even in the above example, the real damage is done once Julian Marchand, the hooker, has wheeled around for the second phase strike off a Guitoune decoy line.

You see the real benefit of Toulouse’s backline on transition, where they are supremely dangerous. Watch this example, but focus on the hard work of Guitoune and Kolbe on the far touchline to support Ramos and Médard as they trade passes in the backfield after a long Gloucester kickback.

Ramos, Médard, Ramos, Kolbe, Guitoune and Dupont all touch the ball on this transition break and Marchand scores after the ball resets from the ruck.

You can see Ahki and Tekori pointing to where the space is as Guitoune and Kolbe work hard to create a chain for Ramos and Medard to work with as Gloucester chase up the field.

When you look at Dupont’s work to break across the field in support of this counter-attack, you get an idea of the advantages of going for pace and skillset over raw size, if that’s a choice you are forced to make.

Toulouse could easily afford to pick up a big midfield hitter if they wanted. André Esterhuizen (6’4″/115kg) was out of contract this summer and he stood out as being someone with the ball-playing ability and size that might have fit Toulouse’s needs but, to date, they’ve stayed out of the market.

They may or may not go looking for a player of that type but on what I’ve seen of Toulouse, I don’t think it’s something that they need.

Physical Umbrella

Toulouse can “afford” to have smaller, quicker backs because of the size they regularly deploy in their pack.

In the Champions Cup, Toulouse would stack serious weight in their front five;

THP: Faumuina, Aldeghri
LHP: Castets, Baille, Neti, Du Toit (on loan)
HK: Mauvaka
L: Arnold, Tekori
BR: Elstadt, Kaino, Tolofua

These would be augmented with quicker, more agile forwards like Cros (BR) and Marchand (HK) but Toulouse anchor their flair and transition work with a really big, powerful pack.

The average weight of their starting tighthead props in the Champions Cup was 126kg. The average weight of their loosehead props was 120kg. In Rory Arnold and Joe Tekori, Toulouse had one of the tallest and heaviest second rows in Europe, with Tekori acting as a non-jumping lock forward that Toulouse would use sometimes use as a heavy ball-carrying threat inside Ntamack.

The compression that Tekori’s presence created on crash decoy opened up the Gloucester defence for Dupont to bring his skillset into play and that creates a try-scoring opportunity.

Kaino and Elstadt play like two half-locks with Cros/Tolofua playing “action flanker” roles alongside the hooker Julien Marchand.

The only sides who regularly started heavier packs than Toulouse in the Champions Cup were Saracens.

Toulouse’s starting pack weight averaged out at 919kg per game and they named the two heaviest packs in Champions Cup all season long when they played Connacht at home (954kg) and Montpellier away (934kg).

To give an idea of scale, Leinster’s starting pack that took the field at home to Northampton (Healy, Kelleher, Furlong, Fardy, Ryan, Ruddock, Van Der Flier, Doris) weighed in at 882kg and Munster’s starting pack at home to Saracens (Cronin, Scannell, Archer, Kleyn, Holland, Beirne, O’Mahony, Stander) was 908kg, which is about as heavy as we can go. Saracens starting pack in that same game weighed in at 934kg.

My point isn’t that heavy packs win games – although there would appear to be a correlation there – it’s how you integrate your attack with that weight. Toulouse have one of the heaviest packs in the game but one of the lightest backlines, so some integration is required. Toulouse manage this by getting allowing their backline to play around the main thrust of the Heavy Pack.

You’ll often see Toulouse lineout in a narrow forward formation like this with Ntamack, Guitoune, Ahki or Ramos dotted around them.

You could start writing about a 1-3-2-2 shape that Toulouse sometimes use but that doesn’t really explain their system very clearly. They have two distinct “theories” of playing the game.

The above shape is about a centre-field hit up that then releases to a wide pod of forwards (Kaino/Arnold) that gets swivelled around to Ahki for a linkup with Ramos down the tramlines.

But it would be a mistake to say that Toulouse like to put Kaino and Arnold in a wide-pod like this because that was just a position they took up in the context of this particular phase of play. Kaino certainly has the physicality to worry a wider defender and the hands to take advantage of any defender that stands up on him, but this isn’t a noted plan by Toulouse to regularly put him in that situation. It was a nice bit of improvisation based on a rough principle of aligning into a rough 3-2 structure off the initial ruck, giving Ntamack carrying options after the ruck resets and then having the skillset to make something happen.

Here’s another example.

Was the plan here that Charlie Faumuina would throw a perfect inside pass before taking an offload from Dupont a few seconds later? Maybe. But when you sign Charlie Faumuina, you don’t do it just because he can sling elite weight around, you sign him because he can sling elite weight around and pass the ball like a midfielder. That then plays into what is possible when you have other forwards of a similar skillset. When the ball comes back from the ruck, it’s Rory Arnold who swings the ball back to Ramos, who has Kaino and Elstadt offering themselves in the wider areas.

For Toulouse, the structure can be as simple as “forwards set a layer of decoy lines to open up the backs’ skillset”.

Arnold’s pass back to Ntamack was the key here. That forward line gives the backline a compressed defence to work against.

It doesn’t work out in this instance – Ahki’s pass lets the move down – but you can see how the forward pressure sets the table for the smaller backs to go to work.

You can see a similar theory here, where Marchand and Tekori run against the ball to compress the defence for the backs to attack.

Toulouse use narrow interplay across their forward line and defender commitment on forward attacking lines to create space and opportunity for their backline.

An ideal Toulouse attacking structure will see a variation of a 1-3-2 or 3-3 or 2-2 in the narrow blue space, with two wide forward runners in the yellow space.

When Toulouse have the numbers to put this kind of loose structure in place, they do just that. Here’s two examples from their home game against Montpellier in the TOP14.

The concept is narrow carrying/interplay between the forwards linking to the backs with two wider forwards away from the other forwards.

Toulouse have the size, physicality and the skillset in the forwards to make it happen. They can offload, they can make narrow breaks, they have the size to commit defenders and, in Antoine Dupont, they have an agile, pacey, breaking scrumhalf that can snipe around any loosely built defensive pillars.

When you’ve got one of the heaviest packs in Europe narrowing the opposition and guys like Elstadt, Cros and Marchand offering themselves as wide heavy runners alongside Ahki, you have a credible physical threat all through the line. Outside the range of the forwards, you have top drawer runners like Huget and Kolbe with the electric talents of Roman Ntamack and Thomas Ramos to stitch it all together.

Toulouse have recruited well, invested in the skillset of their players, backed the right young players with advanced roles and found a way to use their size and power to bring the Toulouse Way into the modern game.