By Christophe G
April 10 2003

Well boys and girls those big games keep coming thick and fast for the Saints with yet another 'biggy' looming large on Saturday in southern France. Stade Toulousain v Northampton Saints, Heineken Cup, does it get much better than that? Well here we go, they don't come much bigger than this one, Toulouse away in last eight of the Heineken European Cup. Personally this is the one place I have always wanted to go to watch rugby and the Saints being there makes it all that more special. The Gold Black n Green hordes have been travelling down all week, with many more on the way, for what could be a make or break game in Saints season as far as credible honours is concerned. Last weeks loss in the Powergen Cup final at Twickenham has to be put behind them, the slate wiped clean and the job in hand got on with. And what a job it is!

Toulouse historically are THE force in French rugby and like the Saints previous winners of the competition in 1996. They almost qualified as top seeds but went down closely to London Irish at the Madstad. However they still did enough to secure a home game against the Saints which they have moved to the larger Stade Municipale and a crowd in the region of 38,000 is expected with around a thousand or so being followers of Northampton. So looks like we are up against it in the noise stakes boys and girls.

TOULOUSE

Guy Noves team has many names familiar to ears this side of the channel. Old stagers such as Pelous, Garbajosa and Ntamack are blended with up and coming French youngsters of the likes of Jeanjean and Clerc. As mentioned above they performed well in the group stages of the European Cup and are currently lying behind our old friends Biarritz in the first playoff group of the French championship despite being beaten by BOPB two weeks ago down in the Basque country. Last week they warmed up for the Saints clash with a 39-17 win over Bourgoin.

TEAM NEWS

The Saints have made some re-adjustments after last weeks Gloucester defeat. Centre pairing Peter Jorgensen and John Leslie drop out while a new centre duo of All Black Bruce Reihana and youngster Chris Hyndman are tried. Archie Brooks comes in on Brucies wing on the opposite flank to Ben Cohen. Nick Beal has recovered from his clash of heads last week and starts at fullback.

The England duo of Matt Dawson and Paul Grayson start behind a pack that retains the same back row as last week in Mark Connors, Budge Pountney and Andy Blowers. No intertionals in the second row but plenty of blood and thunder from a recalled Jon Phillips and probably the pick of last weeks forwards Kiwi Matt Lord.
The front row sees new England cap Robbie Morris out the squad completely with Scottish prop Mattie Stewart coming in for the start. Fellow Scot Tom Smith props opposite while the team is completed by England hooker Steve 'Wally' Thompson.

15 NICK BEAL
14 James Brooks
13 BRUCE REIHANA
12 Chris Hyndman
11 BEN COHEN
10 PAUL GRAYSON
9 MATT DAWSON
1 TOM SMITH
2 STEVE THOMPSON
3 MATT STEWART
4 Matt Lord
5 JON PHILLIPS
6 MARK CONNORS
7 BUDGE POUNTNEY (capt)
8 ANDREW BLOWERS

Replacements from:
Dan Richmond, Chris Budgen, Rob Hunter, Steve Williams, Mark Soden, Ian Vass, Mark Tucker, Peter Jorgensen, John Leslie, Jon Sleightholme and Oriol Ripol.

No definite news from the Toulouse camp yet but keep an eye on the message board where our resident 'NewsHounds' will keep you up to date.

IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TOULOUSE

The game is being shown live on British Eurosport at 13:45. The club will have the main Rodber bar open from 12:30 onwards for this purpose.

HISTORY

As far as I can find out this is the first time the clubs have ever met. Saints are looking for their first win on French soil in the Europen Cup, a win against Toulon in the European Confernce being their only success so far. The season we won the cup our only loss was in the beautiful city of Grenoble while in the last three seasons we have gone down to Biarritz (twice) and were pretty much comprehensively taken apart by a rampant Montferrand in last seasons competition. The narrow loss to Biarritz and the revenge at the Gardens in January are the only pointers to any form and would suggest we are a lot closer than those pundits would have you believe.
We certainly go in as underdogs but with the rub of the green we might just pull off a victory that London irish threatened to do earlier this season.

Now i'm off to pack my bag, see you all there!

ALLEZ LE SAINTS!!!

Further reading:

Larges Guide to all things Toulouse

The Irish Guide to Toulouse

Loms Guide to Rugby Franglais

Watch Out Watch Out the Irish are about!

Stade Toulousain Offy Site

Stade Toulousain Supporters Site