Toulouse are titans of French rugby but risk becoming also-rans

Stade Toulousain! The club is synonymous with winning and flair. No team has won more French Championships or European Cups. They also did so with a certain panache. They were the standard-bearers. They used to be beautiful. But not any more.

They haven’t won a Top 14 title since their 19th Bouclier de Brennus in 2012, nor a European crown since their fourth in 2010.

Nor have they contested a domestic French final in the last four years; their longest sequence without doing so since the early 1980s.

Since Leinster wrested their hold on Europe in the semi-finals at the Aviva Stadium in 2011, the summit of Toulouse’s efforts in Europe has been two pool exits and two quarter-final defeats away to Edinburgh and, three years ago, Munster by 47-22 at Thomond Park.

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The revolution instigated by Pierre Villepreux and Jean-Claude Skrela in the mid-80s was continued by Guy Novès when he became assistant coach in 1988 and then returned to succeed Villepreux in 1993, with Toulouse winning nine Top 14 titles in his 22 years at the helm, as well as those four European Cups.

Novès had been holding the ship together, although the relative decline had started toward the end of his reign.

It was perhaps compounded by the loss of forwards coach Yannick Bru to France, and has continued apace under Ugo Mola, this season reaching a new low.

Since securing qualification for today’s quarter-final a tad luckily when beating Connacht in January, Toulouse have lost five of their subsequent six league games.

They stand 10th, five points and four places behind Pau in the sixth and last of the playoff places.

With four games remaining domestically, against Toulon (away), Racing (home), Castres (away) and Bayonne (home), Toulouse are in very real danger of missing out on the knockout stages of the French Championship for the first time since the 1996-97 season.

What’s more, failure to reach the top six will mean no participation in the European Champions Cup next season, even if they were to win that trophy this season.

So what has gone wrong?

Natural cycle

No team stays pre-eminent forever – as Munster, Leinster, Leicester and others can testify – but exacerbating the natural cycle of things is the changed economic face of French club rugby.

Time was when the Toulouse model led the way. The club owns their own ground, training facilities and academy facilities, and as a single club in a major city with a big turnover, success on the pitch meant they could also target talented players, especially from smaller clubs in the Top 14 or lower divisions.

However, the advent of vastly inflated television deals for coverage of the Top 14 spread the largesse around, and meant an increasing number of rivals could sign Test-standard players from at home and abroad.

This was compounded by the increasing preponderance of benefactors at rival clubs, initially such as Pierre Fabre at Castres and Max Guazzini at Stade Francais, then Mourad Boudjellal at Toulon and Jacky Lorenzetti at Racing, and latterly Mohed Altrad at Montpellier. In Clermont Auvergne, they have the might of Michelin backing them.

Not alone has this swelled budgets for salaries across the Top 14, but those clubs backed by benefactors can write off debts which the self-financing model run by Toulouse cannot afford to do – unless, that is, they were to find a private benefactor, or a major sponsor prepared to plough €5-10 million into their coffers.

In light of this new economic climate, three years ago Toulouse opted to invest in a revamped academy, and there are signs of this coming to fruition, particularly in the frontrow, with the emergence of loosehead prop Cyril Baille, hooker Christopher Tolofua (both of whom have broken into the French squad), 22-year-old flanker Yacouba Camara, who has also broken into the French squad but is currently injured, and tighthead Dorian Aldegheri, a 23-year-old prop, who akin to the upwardly mobile Brennan brothers, Danny and Josh, joined their academy when he was 13.

If that is a sign of things to come, especially at halfback, then Toulouse could re-emerge again in another two or three years.

But their core of stalwarts – Thierry Dusautoir, Patricio Albacete, Census Johnston, Gurthrö Steenkamp (all of whom are 35) as well as Florian Fritz and Luke McAlister (both 33) – are not the players they were.

That said, Maxime Médard (30) has shown a real resurgence in form at fullback in recent weeks.

World class

To compound this, their budgetary constraints and relative decline contributed to the departure of Louis Picamoles to Northampton, and his absence has been acutely felt.

Cast a cursory glance around the Top 14, and world-class number eights predominate, be it Fritz Lee at Clermont, Victor Vito at La Rochelle, Pierre Spies at Montpellier, Duane Vermeulen at Toulon, Sergio Parisse at Stade Francais and so on. Gillian Galan is a good player, but not in that league.

Recent seasons had seen Toulouse struggle in the set-pieces, while retaining much of the old magic in their back play, but this season has seen that flip, with Toulouse strong in lineout, maul and scrum.

However, their halfbacks have not been able to light the touchpaper, whether it be Mola’s preferred option of Sébastien Bézy and Jean-Marc Doussain, or Portuguese scrumhalf Samuel Marques, or Luke McAlister and Toby Flood, who was recently sent-off in the 21-19 defeat to Brive for dropping his knee into an opponent’s back at a ruck.

Bézy and Doussain are not from the Toulouse school of creative, heads-up halfbacks which gave the world Frédéric Michalak, Yann Delaigue and Jean-Baptiste Élissalde.

Furthermore, without the squad depth of, say, Clermont, Montpellier, Toulon and others, the international windows have hit Toulouse hard, particularly the recent Six Nations, during which they have missed Yoann Maestri, Gaël Fickou, Yoann Huget, Italian hooker Leonardo Ghiraldini and Scottish lock Richie Gray, as well as both Tolofua and Baille.

With all of them back in harness, bar the injured Tolofua, Toulouse’s league form might not therefore count for too much on Saturday.

They must also know that this is their realistic last shot at glory this season, and that for the first time since the tournament’s inception, Toulouse may not be back next season.