Toulouse have Champions Cup top spot but history says it means little
The most successful Investec Champions Cup side in history Toulouse put themselves in good stead to win a sixth title with a 32-19 victory over Bath.
The French powerhouses pulled away late on at the Stade Ernest-Wallon to earn a bonus point victory and ensure they maintained their 100 per cent try bonus winning run in the competition.
It means Toulouse qualify for April’s Round of 16 as No1 seeds, which guarantees them a home tie for the next knockout phase but also a quarter-final should they reach one.
Furthermore it means that a win in the quarter-finals would guarantee them home country advantage for the semi-finals.
They will take on Parisians Racing 92 in the next phase of the tournament with the home side potentially moving the game to the city’s bigger football ground, the Stadium de Toulouse.
Toulouse effortless
A brace of tries for fly-half Thomas Ramos, as well as a penalty try and scores for Emmanuel Meafou and Juan Cruz Mallia, were enough to cancel out attempts by Bath’s props Beno Obano and Thomas du Toit, as well as England centre Ollie Lawrence.
The side have blown away their opposition in this year’s pool stages: they’ve got a positive points difference of 109, have scored an average of 44 points a match and have scored 26 tries in four matches.
The result for Bath, no match points, means they miss out on a home Round of 16 tie with Harlequins benefiting from their failure.
But Toulouse, who had to wait 11 years between their fourth Champions Cup triumph in 2010 and their last in 2021, have been here before.
Last year they finished as one of the top seeds but fell to Irish giants Leinster in the semi-finals.
A year prior, in the 2021-22 season, Toulouse snuck through to the knockouts on points difference and were again beaten in the semi-finals by the Dubliners.
The year they last won the Champions Cup they managed to avoid the two top seeds, Leinster and Lyon, entirely.
Conscious
So Ugo Mola’s men will be conscious of their achievement, and will know it means little given the draw and how it can change depending on other results.
But they will be able to get a feeler for what they are in for with the Top 14 champions heading north to the French capital on Sunday to face Racing 92 in their domestic league.
It will be their dress rehearsal as the French outfit begin to dream of Champions Cup glory yet again, and with their squad depth they’re certainly going to be in the mix.
Standout player for the hosts yesterday was England flanker Jack Willis, whose presence at Toulouse disqualifies him from playing for Steve Borthwick’s side in this year’s Six Nations.
But playing for the galacticos of Toulouse must surely be worth the sacrifice? They’re the pinnacle of continental club rugby.
Mola’s men are monstrous, they’re ferocious and they’ve stormed into the next phase of the Champions Cup.
But history will remind them that it counts for nothing if they don’t continue to turn the cogs and wipe the floor with opponents. Because history tells us everything about how Toulouse could have won another five titles.