FRENCH HEAVYWEIGHTS Toulouse must bounce back from their shock defeat by unheralded Connacht in European Cup pool action on the weekend, according to coach Guy Noves.
The four-time European champions went down 16-14 at home to the Irish province in what was arguably one of the biggest upsets in the competition’s history.
“Yesterday evening there was disappointment, it was one of the worst moments of the season,” Noves admitted today. “A defeat in the European Cup is never easy to digest, above all when it’s at home.
“The night was relatively short and we got back to work by force of circumstance to try to find some solutions for next weekend,” when they travel to Galway for the return fixture against Connacht.
Noves said the defeat was all the more galling because it followed an impressive 17-16 victory over English giants Saracens.
“Given our two opening European Cup victories, notably over Saracens, we’d hoped to continue with that type of performance, particularly at home,” he said.
“It’s a bad moment that we have to quickly take on board and rebound from. We mustn’t go to sleep on a failure.”
Noves added that his side had struggled after losing a raft of players to international duty during the November Test window.
“The Saracens match came after two months of competition, some high-quality work from a team that was rising up to its best level,” he said. “For the match against Connacht, some players hadn’t been at Toulouse for a month and others were coming back from holidays, so there was some work that was not well done, and that was shown in the match when we obviously didn’t have the same automatic reflexes.
“When you have loads of players away on international duty, it’s always more complicated. It’s not an excuse but it’s a reason. The fact you don’t have these players at training, it’s tiring and a little long.”
