Toulouse 21 Gloucester 17:GLOUCESTER'S ROYAL put in something close to a regal performance in the south of France yesterday, just falling short of helping his team to one of the upsets of the opening weekend.
Eight minutes from time it even looked as though the try Mike Tindall fashioned for Henry Trinder might have dealt Toulouse their first home defeat in Europe for two years and gone some way to redressing the balance of a week in which the now former England centre was booted out of the national training squad and fined €29,000.
Still he did enough to forget his off-field troubles for 80 minutes and even went close to winning the man of the match award which would have meant an embarrassing five minutes in front of the Sky cameras.
As it was Bryan Redpath, Tindall’s head coach at Gloucester, did the honours for him, saying there was never any thought that Tindall would not play. “I never even asked him,” said Redpath.
“This week we’ve just thought about the rugby. The other things are external and he blocked them out. He’s still as keen as mustard to play for Gloucester . . . he’s desperate to play rugby.”
That showed from the off. Within the first seven minutes Tindall had pulled down Yves Donguy when it looked as though the flying Toulouse left-wing was about to go over in the Gloucester corner.
Tindall then relieved the pressure with a huge boot that took play 60 yards down field and resulted in the first points of the game.
Gloucester were still reaping the territorial benefits of that kick when Toulouse strayed offside allowing Freddie Burns to land his second attempt at a penalty.
Tindall played his part as usual in the opening try. The England centre may not have the best hands in the business, but he was quick enough to pass out of the tackle, allowing Trinder the space to find Jonny May and the stand-in fullback paved the way for a simple run in for wing Charlie Sharples.
That is not to say Toulouse had not dropped heavy hints about the dangers of Gloucester over-relaxing and Donguy had another chance before the new boy Luke McAlister fashioned the chip that put Timoci Matanavou, over in the corner. With McAlister’s earlier penalty it helped put Toulouse within two points at the interval.
Toulouse came out for the second half breathing fire and went ahead before the Tindall intervention that might have stolen the game.
First Sharples cleared up the mess of a ball bouncing aimlessly in midfield, before Tindall claimed his pass, shrugged off a couple of tackles and then found Trinder charging up on his left shoulder.
The conversion from Burns put Gloucester three points ahead with eight minutes to go, but then came a moment of magic as Toulouse pinballed their way down the left, making a nonsense of the Gloucester cover before Clement Poitrenaud crossed and got close enough to the posts to make Lionel Beauxis’ conversion easy.
TOULOUSE: Poitrenaud; Matanavou, David, Fritz (Jauzion, 60), Donguy; McAlister (Beauxis, 60), Burgess; Poux (Montes, 64), Botha (Servat, 52), Johnston (Falefa, 64), Maestri, Millo-Chluski, Nyanga, Nicolas Sowerby, (Galan, 52) Nicolas.
GLOUCESTER: May; Sharples, Trinder, Tindall, Voyce; Burns, R Lawson (Lewis, 70); Wood, Dawiduk (S Lawson, 55), Harden (Chistolini, 74), James, Hamilton, Buxton (capt), Strokosch, Qera (Narraway, 61). Sin-bin Strokosch 51.
Referee: P FitzGibbon (Ireland).
ELWOOD WANTS CONNACHT TO ‘ROCK UP’ AND RAISE LEVEL AGAINST TOULOUSE
CONNACHT COACH Eric Elwood is urging his team to step it up another gear for Toulouse’s visit this week after pushing Harlequins to the limit in their Heineken Cup debut, writes Linley MacKenzie.
Elwood says Connacht’s first performance in the competition came as no surprise to him, but the challenge now is to raise the bar higher when the European kingpins arrive in the west on Saturday.
“We firmly believe in what we are doing – people may not think we can compete against the likes of Harlequins or Toulouse, and that might happen, but we firmly believed we could have won that game, so I was not surprised,” he says.
“People have every right to be proud and I am proud of the lads, but we were so disappointed because we genuinely felt we could have won – that is not being big-headed because that is not our business – but it was an opportunity. I have waited 16 years to get into the Heineken, so I am not going to be harsh on the boys – it was a fantastic effort, but we came up short and got nothing out of it.” Now, he says, Connacht have to ” rock up and raise the level against the mighty Toulouse”.
