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Mad world: Stade Toulousain's
Fabien Pelous takes stock
Photo: Michael Paler |
“If you can keep your
head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:”
Logic and form flew out
of the window as
a set of freakish results turned Top 14 on
its head in France on Saturday.
Stade Toulousain, so
dominant for most of the season, found themselves out-fought and out-thought
by lowly Toulon – ceding the championship lead to Perpignan in the process,
who went top
despite losing at Biarritz on Friday.
Top 14 Table
/ Top 14 Fixtures
Stade’s irate forwards
coach Yannick Bru was almost too angry to comment after their latest
reverse, telling reporters: “As for collective performance, do not speak
because I am afraid to be too unpleasant.”
Toulon president Mourad
Boudjellal, meanwhile, was understandably cock-a-hoop after such a brilliant
win. “There were moments in the season where we felt that we were imposters.
This has demonstrated the opposite,” he proudly opined after the win.
But if Toulon’s shock
victory wasn’t bizarre enough – together with the reality of a team climbing
into the Championship lead despite losing – then basement club
Mont-de-Marsan also defied the odds as they overturned a five-match losing
streak to beat Castres 21-15 at home and record only their fifth success of
a trying season.
Then, to cap it all, Dax
somehow stopped a 10-match losing streak by winning away at Montauban with
banned coach Thomas Lièvremont looking on proudly from the stands as he
began his 20-day touchline ban.
Brother and captain
Mathieu was the Dax hero with the crucial second-half score that earned his
team their first victory in more than five months and kept them clinging to
the slimmest of lifelines as they battle for their Top 14 survival.
“After seeing Toulon
beat Toulouse it was decided to give it everything,” said Dax scrum-half
Nicolas Vergallo. “We wanted to leave the pitch without regret,” he added.
Montauban captain, and future coach, Marc Raynaud refused to
make excuses for the loss but was scathing of the abuse hurled at his
players by the home crowd after they slumped to their unexpected defeat.
Dax, meanwhile, can now
look forward to next week’s home game with Mont-de-Marsan in a match that
has assumed monumental importance. As things stand Les Montois have 28
points and Dax 33, with the next team – Bourgoin – six points ahead on 39.
Toulon are two points
further ahead on 41, but still couldn’t celebrate confirmed safety despite
their stunning triumph over defending champions Stade Toulousain. The odds
are greatly in their favour, however, leaving Bourgoin as the nervous party
in the bottom three after they had seemingly earned their own reprieve with
back-to-back wins against Dax and Montpellier.
This was followed by
their
shock 32-30 away victory at London Irish in the
European Challenge Cup – keeping alive their own hopes of a
surprise shot at Heineken Cup qualification – but their relaxed mental state
was all to clear on Saturday as they were crushed 61-10 by Bayonne –
themselves fighting for Heineken Cup qualification.
Bourgoin had every right
to believe that safety was all but secured as they looked at the form of
Dax, Mont-de-Marsan and Toulon before the weekend began, but a trio of wins
for the teams which began the day below them has now hauled them right back
into the relegation mix.
What they need now is a
comfortable home game against a team with little to play for. What they
actually face is an away trip to a Stade Toulousain side deeply wounded by
successive defeats – to Cardiff Blues and Toulon – and facing mounting
criticism after failing to score a single try in either match.
Home games follow
against Castres and Brive – with the latter likely to require a last-day
victory to complete their own goal of Heineken Cup qualification. Brive have
also entered the world of the bizarre of late, conceding 15 tries in their
last three games - as opposed to nine in their previous 17 - as their
once-promising season threatens to unravel spectacularly at the death.
Back at Bourgoin,
meanwhile, the intriguing possibility now arises of a team destined for
relegation to ProD2 winning qualification for the Heineken Cup by virtue of
winning Europe’s second-tier competition.
The lunatics, it seems,
could finally be on the verge of taking over the asylum.
“If you can talk with
crowds and keep your virtue,
‘Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my Son!” (If – Rudyard
Kipling)
