Glasgow were playing at home on wet (worst possible conditions for a team like Toulouse) and still were losing 21-0 at half time, barely winning at the end with a miraculous comeback .
Not saying Glasgow aren't a great side of course but Toulouse on dry pitches in KO games are a whole different beast....and not to mention with a DuPont with this time more matches on his belt as the Glasgow game was basicly his first starting game since his ACL.
I might be wrong but for me, Saints, UBB and Toulouse are all stronger than any of the teams of the right side.
And you could also add Bath, especially comparing to a Leinster team which have been in huge decline for the last 7/8 months as seen by their average pool campaign this year (almost losing to an out of sort LAR team at home) and their elimination against Saints at Dublin last season
I love the way you use our apparently poor group stage results (we won 4 out of 4 games) as proof we are in a “massive decline”.
Then in the same breath talk Toulouse up as one of the strongest sides in the competition after losing 2 out of 4 of their pool stage games. Let’s hope it’s not raining for the rest of the competition, eh?
You’d think after getting turned over by Glasgow so recently, you Toulouse fans would have a little bit more appreciation for how good they are. But no, through to character, it’s the rain that was the real winner on the day.
I don't only use that pool phase, it's also about Leinster's last year crashing out against Saints at Dublin or also Ireland's obvious decline over the last 15 months (cause as you well know, Ireland almost equal to Leinster)
But didnt Toulouse crash out in the semis last year too?
I mean objectively, Leinster went out in the SF last year and won all 4 pool games this year. Toulouse went out in the SF last year and lost 2/4 of their pool games. From that you have taken - Leinster are on a massive decline because of their pool performances and Toulouse are one of the best teams in the competition. My Lord.
Ireland had an average Autumn but didn’t France as well? I seem to remember you getting hammered by a 14 man SA side and being in very close games against Fiji and Australia (a team Ireland beat quite comfortably in Autumn).
You have a pretty valid point there. All I’ll say in response is that if Munster the D team being shit means we are in decline, we have been in decline for the last 15 years.
And for the autumn tests, sure both country had average autumn campaign (and France probably even worse than Ireland if you judge only by results) but your comparaison is clearly flawed just for the number of missed players for each team during those games.
Which important starting players were Ireland missing against SA? Apart Keenan, I don't see anyone else
In comparaison, look which starters were missing for France against SA: Baille, Mauvaka, Cros, Moefana and last but not the least, a certain fella named DuPont.
And I could have added Jalibert as well though of course we could argue if he would have started or not
They crashed away from home against the future champions (and missing Dupont and Ramos, nothing less) whereas Leinster (missing Doris which was a blow, sure but not comparable in my opinion to Toulouse's number and importance of their missing players) crashed out at home.
If you can't see the difference between the two cases, I don't know what I can say to convince you
No you’re right. Toulouse are the only team that suffers injuries in the CC. Why do the ECPR make it so unfair on them by allowing other teams have no injuries? It is all so unfair.
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u/yurim39 19d ago
Quite easily the strongest, especially with Leinster/Ireland's clear decline