London Rugby will try to reach the Champions Cup final on the pitch at Toulouse Stadium this Sunday, May 5 (4pm). The two teams have already met this season in the group stage of the competition, with the “Red and Black” winning 47-19 in London.
Are Stade Toulouse favorites for the Champions Cup semi-final against Harlequins at the Toulouse Stadium on Sunday 5 May? Looking at the form of both the teams we will say “yes”.
The Toulouse residents topped their group in the regular season and are currently second in the top 14. The Londoners finished second in the group stage and are currently 5th in the Premiership, the English Championship.
Read More:
Stade Toulousein-Harlequins: “Combinations are not made on the fly!” Instead of Ramos, Marchand and Arnold, Ugo Mola justifies his preferences
A regular phase of the match, during which both teams have already crossed paths. Last December 17th was the 2nd day. Then at Twickenham Stoop in London, the English scored 7 tries as Toulouse won 47-19.
Read More:
Stade Toulousein-Harlequins: “I can be very naughty!” Why the referee suffers from a terrible reputation among French clubs
In light of these facts, could Toulouse have it easy on Sunday? The English will want to give the French champions a tough time, but above all, they say they have learned lessons from the first clash. “We were only at 95% that day,” Harlequins second-row and captain Stephen Lewis said this Saturday 4. “And against the best teams in the world, that’s unforgivable, but that’s behind us and we’ve come a long way since then and it will be a completely different competition,” he promised.
Read More:
Stade Toulousein-Harlequins: “A match with more or less quality!” Why “red and black” often play football in training?
He continues: “Toulouse is obviously a good team, stars in all stripes. But to be the best, you have to beat the best. We all dreamed, as kids, of playing in tournaments like this.”
Read More:
Stade Toulouse-Harlequins: “This generation wants to mark the history of the club,” says Ugo Mola ahead of Champions Cup semi-final
“We weren’t expected to win against this incredible Bordeaux team (42-41 victory in the quarter-final, editor’s note) but we did,” recalled Billy Millard, the London club’s sporting director. “Toulouse are a big team and we know what to expect. Without losing anything in terms of quality, they have a lot of potential in their team. We have to put them under pressure and other teams have been able to do that.”
“Beeraholic. Friend of animals everywhere. Evil web scholar. Zombie maven.”
More Stories
This prompts a debate among editors – is the only English club in the semi-finals of the European Cup really surprising?
Do I have the right not to respect a professional intention written in English?
MICS introduces CroissantLLM, a bilingual French-English open source model