EUROPEAN CUP DIARY:A hectic schedule means Guy Noves must husband his resources with Munster in mind, says Trevor Brennan.
MAY IS one of the favourite months in France, not least because the sun is beginning to shine again and they know they have about five or six months of this to come. But also because they have so many days to enjoy the sunshine.
May 1st is May Day, and the first of three bank holidays in the first two weeks of the month. On May Day everyone gives bouquets of muget (lily-of-the-valley), for good luck. Every shop and boulangerie sells them. Little stalls of these flowers are set up on every corner of every city and little town, where you can stop and buy a few for friends and neighbours.
May 8th is Victory Day. This is the day when French people honour the dead at war memorials, which also seem to exist in every town and village. French flags flutter in the breeze, along with bunches of flowers in the red, white and blue ribbons.
This is a people steeped in an unforgettable past of defending their nation, which has immense pride in its history. They choose to remember all those who gave up their lives for the freedom France enjoys today.
They also celebrate the bread makers on May 12th: la fête du pain. Another bank holiday. I suppose in hard times, that's all French people lived on: bread. How do they mark it? Well, they just don't work, although the boulangeries are open.
Ironically, the bread makers are the one group who do work!
May 18th is la féte des enfants. May 25th is Mother's Day. These are not bank holidays as such, but they are religiously observed.
Then comes the day no one can seemingly remember: May 30th is deadline day for tax returns.
Unfortunately for the professional rugby players of Toulouse, the month of May did not grant them many holidays. Toulouse played three games in 10 days, the first of those against Auch last Friday week. They fielded a mixture of first-team players and Espoirs, and managed to win by 73-11. Auch are bottom of the table and having been promoted last year will more than likely descend back to Pro D2.
Last Tuesday Toulouse travelled to Castres, where they stayed overnight before playing Castres on Wednesday night in front of a full house and against a full-strength Castres team who had beaten Clermont Auvergne away the previous Saturday and, in sixth place, were chasing a top-four play-off spot.
I drove to Castres and this was as tough and physical a game as Toulouse have played all season, completely different from the one they played four days earlier.
Toulouse just upped it a gear in the second half and managed to win 16-6. Toulouse were matched in the backs and most other areas of the game, but the Castres lineout fell apart as Toulouse picked off their throws. This also led to the only try of the game.
Other than that, they were pretty evenly matched.
To underline what a good win that was, Castres hosted Brive on Sunday and beat them 41-10 to move into fifth, but they are six points behind Perpignan in fourth and were very disappointed not to at least pick up a bonus point against Toulouse.
They made a bad start to the season but their form has really picked up since Mark McCall arrived as backs coach. He and Jeremy Davidson are widely considered to be doing a fine job there. Jeremy has signed a two- or three-year deal. Mark is looking to stay another year or two.
Toulouse travelled to Monpellier on Sunday, their third game in 10 days, and lost 17-15. Montpellier were 12-0 up inside seven minutes and might have been further ahead had Mark McHugh, who has been kicking brilliantly all season, landed more than one conversion.
Mark played with me when we won the AIL with St Mary's and it's great to see an ex-Connacht player really shining in the Top 14. He's been Montpellier's key points scorer, and has played at fullback, wing, centre and outhalf, though mostly fullback.
Toulouse were still trailing 17-3 when Guy Noves emptied the bench in the 54th minute, bringing on Byron Kelleher for the 19-year-old Mathieu Belie, with Jean-Baptiste Elissalde moving to outhalf, Jean Bouilhou for Patricio Albacete, Shaun Sowerby for Finau Maka and Yohan Montes for Jean-Baptiste Poux. Soon after, the Argentinian hooker Vernet-Basualdo had to replace the injured Yannick Nyanga in the backrow.
Kelleher has been winning games on his own, just destroying teams.
Nyanga, with a strained hamstring, is a concern for Toulouse, as is Manu Ahotaeiloa, who picked up a leg injury. The only good news for Stade Toulousain this week is that Freddy Michalak has decided, at the end of his year with Natal Sharks, to come back to the club he started with, after having talks with Stade Français and Toulon.
"The return of the prodigal son" as it's been headlined, will allow Elissalde revert to scrumhalf and rotate with Kelleher, while Michalak can interchange with David Skrela when he returns from Stade Français. Toulouse will be strong at halfback next season.
Those changes in Montpellier saw Toulouse score two tries by Yves Donguy and Sowerby, the second of which, in the 72nd minute, was scored in the corner and gave Elissalde a touchline conversion to draw the sides level. His kick hit the post and after that Montpellier held onto the ball for most of the last seven minutes with pick-and-go tactics. They celebrated as if they had won the World Cup final.
Toulouse play Montauban at home next Saturday, and after such a gruelling week it seems to be reaching the stage where the expertise of coaches really comes into play, with decisions on rotating players and keeping players fully fit for the Heineken Cup final against Munster balanced against the need to target particular games.
Anybody playing in those three games in 10 days was fighting hard to earn a place in the starting XV or 22 for the final in Cardiff. No player wants to miss out on an opportunity to be part of the final of this competition, which means so much to the city of Toulouse as well as their team.
There appears to be a massive interest in the H Cup final over here. Toulouse have a dozen 154-seater buses and two chartered aeroplanes hired for the final, which are already full. As with the semi-final, they'll drive to Cherbourg, get the boat from there and drive on to Cardiff. It just shows the commitment.
The club were allocated 4,000 tickets but I'd say they could have sold twice that many. Because of sponsors' commitments and so forth, and the 600 allotted to Le Huit, the official supporters, only about 1,500 went on sale to the public and they were sold in a few hours last Monday week. Thousands queued and there were a few unhappy customers.
But Guy Noves is otherwise pretty happy. He has himself a new racing bike, given to him by the French cycling team. It's made of carbon fibre, weighs about five kilos and is worth about seven grand. He seems pretty chuffed and was showing it off in the physios' room. After his near-death crash on his last bike, he's back on the road again.
In an interview with Gerry Thornley
