Magnificent to return as number seven

Trevor Brennan's diary: It was a tough week. Physio sessions, videos, weights, training, more videos, more training.

It was tougher having been out of action for the previous two weeks after being knocked out against Castres but, as had been made clear to us, the Northampton match was a massive game for us.

WEDNESDAY

I trained all week with number seven on my back but as we were due our day off on Thursday, I was hoping Guy Noves would have me in the team when he announced it on Friday before the team run.

Jean-Michelle Roncoule, one of our scouts, traditionally invites new signings over to his house for dinner in their first season with the club and Alfie (Gareth Thomas), asked me to come along. It was a typical French dinner, foie gras to start, followed by duck. A lovely meal.

The custom is to talk about rugby and Jean-Michelle, being a scout, spoke about how Stade Toulouse came to sign certain players like Alfie, myself and Vincent Clerc. He told the lads he came over to watch me play on September 11th, 2001, a date not easily forgotten for tragic reasons.

Leinster were playing Pontypridd in a Celtic league game that night. Jean-Michelle actually came over to watch Victor Costello but I had a good game in the second row and scored a try. He took his notes, went back to Guy Noves and discussed other games that I had played, and so it came to pass that they signed me.

Sorry Vic. The climate wouldn't have suited you. It's no Leitrim.

He also explained how he signed Clerc when he went to watch a centre play for Grenoble, but having seen how well Vincent played, rather than take the centre, they took Vincent.

He went to see Gareth play for Wales against the Baa Baas.

Jean-Michelle arrived a bit late and saw someone being taken off on a stretcher. He asked who it was and he was told it was Gareth Thomas.

The next day he met Gareth in the Vale of Glamorgan, and Alfie arrived on crutches. He told him "no, no, no, we can't sign an injured player. We already have Xavier Garbajosa and Benoit Baby injured."

He needed reassurance that it wasn't a long-term injury so over the next two days Gareth had to do every medical test under the sun to show that it was nothing life threatening and he would be able to play for Stade at the start of this season.

FRIDAY

The team announcement. I have to say it was good to be back. Guy Noves picked me at seven, and with Christian Labit rested the back-row was made up of myself, Isitolo Maka at eight and Jean Bouilhou at six. I have to say that the number seven shirt, which is usually measured up for Jean Bouilhou, was a tight fit. With the help of Christian Labit and Isitolo Maka I managed to get it over my head.

We watched a video of our game against Northampton and a couple of their league matches from a few weeks before, pointing out mistakes they'd made. I said they'd have done their own video analysis and with a new coaching team probably weren't going to make the same mistakes. I'm not sure my comments were appreciated, but there you go.

That night in the hotel we watched the Bourgoin-Leinster game after our meal. The usual banter started with a few of the lads.

Florian Fritz shouted across the table that my old team would be beaten. I thought of giving him a 40-point start for a 20 bet but Alfie advised me it would be a tighter game than that so we settled on a straight bet.

Bourgoin had obviously targeted this game, like a few French sides last weekend, and in the end Leinster were a little lucky to get only their second win in 10 years in France thanks to a bit of Brian O'Driscoll magic.

SATURDAY

Florian called up to my room with the €20. I said it was okay but he insisted on paying his debts.

It turned out that the match was a near 20,000 sell-out. Northampton brought about 1,500 supporters and I have to admit they were noisy, and at times outshouted the Toulouse supporters. It was another one of those games, like the week before, when we had plenty of try-scoring chances but couldn't convert them, Northampton making their tackles or managing to slow our ruck ball or kill it.

One thing that has been working very well this season has been our rolling maul which earned us our one try in a 25-12 win. A lot of our backs weren't too pleased with this as at certain times they felt they should be getting the ball.

At half-time Guy Noves gave us our normal bollicking but he picked me out for special attention. He told me I'm not an outhalf and I shouldn't be in the slot between numbers nine and 10, because I didn't have the vision or the skill of a number 10. I'm a catch-the-ball and straight-up type of player. I knew he was only doing his job. All taken on board!

To be honest it was a pretty hard game for me. I'd been out of action for two weeks after my knockout and found the game very tough. There was also a bit of a memory loss. I had forgotten a few of the calls for lineouts and back-row moves, and I had to keep asking guys to remind me of them.

We still haven't really clicked but it's difficult when so many players have been away on international duty. I think we're a lot like Munster, and like them we'll hopefully get better.

I managed to watch the first half of the Munster game in a brasserie in the Stade ground. It looked like quite a close contest in the first half but I couldn't get to see the second as I had to do my bit in the sponsor's tent.

By all accounts the Munster 10 came good.

The father, aka the Fanatic, had arrived on Thursday with his brother (the Rottweiler), his wife Cillo and her friend Denise. I picked them up at the airport, dropped them off at their hotel and left them to their own devices until Saturday night.

They were in great spirits by the time I met up with them. It turns out that Georgie, the Rottweiler, had been sipping wine since 10.0 in the morning at Place Wilson. "Just catching up with a couple of the locals," as he put it.

That night the squad went for a meal in the St Tropez off Victor Hugo car park. I had booked a table for Paula and the gang although it's forbidden to bring family or friends to these post-match meals. I was living on the edge.

I had asked the owner to put them out the back in the conservatory with the old gas heaters, while we lived it up in the dining-room. But Paula and Gemma were spotted by some of the players and myself and Alfie got a €30 fine.

SUNDAY

A nice family day. Toulouse is looking really festive, with Place Capitol done up in lights and Christmas shacks. Alfie had been getting the players to call me Scrooge after I hopped the ball with him by saying I had only got Josh and Daniel a box of 50 metal dinkies for 9.99 and a selection box of small chocolates for 3.99 in a sale. I told him they' re not very demanding kids and we're trying to introduce them to the less commercial and more spiritual side of Christmas!

MONDAY

We have two more games left before Christmas against Auch away and Pau at home, and when we came back to training Guy Noves was stressing how important these games are in the context of the French championship, as when the Six Nations resumes and our internationals will be on duty, we'll be playing Perpignan, Stade Francais and Agen away. So these games are massive and the pressure is back on.

TUESDAY

Alfie has also taken to calling me Chicken Wings, as he reckons I need to bulk up, so twice a week, in addition to the training and the weights we do with the club, himself and myself put in an extra weights session. That's where I'm off to now. But I shouldn't complain. It's a good life. We have a week off over Christmas and then we come back to training on January 2nd, to get ready for the resumption of the Heineken Cup.

Until then, a bientot.

Trevor Brennan's regular Heineken Cup column can be read on the ERC website, which is at www.ercrugby.com

In an interview with Gerry Thornley