In its Stadium full as an egg, Toulouse did not detail. The triple holder of the Brennus shield swept away the transparent Rochelais (60-14 and 9 tries to 2) this Sunday evening, thus regaining the Palois lead in the ranking for a small point after this last day of the first leg.
Will we have to wait until the final phase to finally see a real clash between title contenders? Since the start of the season, this Top 14 has made a specialty of exploiting the most attractive posters. A trip to Toulouse is a bit like a mountain stage at the Tour de France for a sprinter, a day of rest in short.
This Sunday evening, Les Rochelais in their canary jersey looked like Titi in front of Grosminet. They only had the illusion for a quarter of an hour, enough time to surprise the Toulouse defense in the 5th minute with an ordinary launch after a touch and to flatten in the goal by Davit Niniashvili (0-7, 5th). Afterwards ? Ronan O’Gara’s players passively suffered the Toulouse assaults, withstanding an avalanche of tries without reacting in the slightest.
Like the Bordelais before them who came for tourism in Haute-Garonne on October 12 (56-13), like the Toulonnais in Bordeaux on December 21 (46-7) and in Toulouse on October 26 (59-24), or like themselves already in Toulon on November 8 (39-14), the Rochelais kindly watched their opponents invest their in-goal. Result ? Five tries scored before half-time, a score already flowing (36-7) and a match without spice.
Dupont’s double
The interest came from the performance of Antoine Dupont who gradually regains his feelings. The scrum half and captain of the France team, who returned to the field a month ago after almost nine months of absence due to a rupture of the cruciate ligaments in his right knee last March, led the meeting with vision and without any mistakes.
He even allowed himself a solo attempt, escaping close to a group, causing a commotion and accelerating like in his finest hours (35th). Three minutes later, he recovered a ball left on the ground by Jack Willis, thus deceiving a La Rochelle defense with his hands on his hips two meters from his goal line (38th).
The second period, which no longer had much interest, took on the appearance of a digestive nap between two New Year’s Eves. Antoine Dupont stood out again with a magnificent 50-22 kick (58th) and a precise 40m foot pass into the arms of his winger Teddy Thomas who just had to flatten it (59th). The artist came out on this action. And the curtain finally fell on an unopposed Toulouse victory against the ghost-like Rochelais.
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