Toulouse broke the European Rugby Cup title record by winning the competition for the fifth time thanks to its success in a 100% French final ahead of La Rochelle (22-17) on Saturday in Twickenham, England . This is the first French title in the competition since the last of the three coronations following Toulon in 2015.
Stade Toulousain, which so far shared the record with the Irish from Leinster, had previously triumphed in the “Champions Cup” in 1996, 2003, 2005 and 2010. Stade Rochelais was playing its first final in the event.
This final, contested in front of some 10,000 spectators, in the stronghold of English rugby, has long been closed. It was not until the hour of play that the balance tipped in the Toulouse side thanks to a test scored by the Argentinian center Juan Cruz Mallia.
The opener Romain Ntamack, who became like his father Emile European champion, weighed heavily in the meeting. In the construction of the decisive test, the number 10 of the XV of France was also impeccable in front of the poles (17 points).
The Rochelais, sanctioned with a red card in the first period (Levani Botia, 28) nevertheless played eye to eye with the Toulouse. The New Zealand scrum-half Tawera Kerr-Barlow even revived the suspense of a trial in the “money-time”. Current leader of the French Championship, ahead of La Rochelle, two days from the end of the regular season, Toulouse will now try to achieve a double by offering itself a 21st national coronation. He has already achieved this feat once, in 1996, for the first edition of the European Cup.
The European campaign of French clubs is perfect across the board since Montpellier raised on Friday, in this same temple of the XV de la Rose, the “Challenge Cup”, “small” European Cup, at the expense of the English of Leicester (18 -17). French teams titled in the two competitions in the same year? This had only happened once, in 1997, during the victories of Brive and Bourgoin-Jallieu.
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