WITH EIGHT EUROPEAN titles evenly divided between them, there is no doubt that Toulouse and Leinster have looked across at one another with admiring glances.
Yet while they are peers at the top of the Heineken Champions Cup honour roll, the overlapping time of their superpower eras was brief.
“I have nightmares of that game,” says John Fogarty of the 2010 semi-final, when the defending champions were knocked out in Toulouse as the hosts moved within a step of their fourth crown.
Fogarty in Toulouse during the 2010 Heineken Cup semi-final. Source: Billy Stickland/INPHO
The French giants could not have imagined that the tallies would be level within a decade.
Les Rouge et Noires won back-to-back Bouclier de Brennus shields in the seasons that followed, but since 2013 they have not finished inside the top two of the Top14, nor reached the final through the Barrages. In 2017 they endured a torrid season and finished third from bottom.
The gallant one-time kings of European rugby are not what they once were. Yet their fall from the upper rungs of rugby won’t diminish Leinster’s intent to make a statement. And to do that, they will begin by treating Sunday’s opposition as though they are vintage Toulouse.
“When you go over there, it is almost an attack on the senses,” says Fogarty as he looked ahead to a week preparing the eastern province.
“There’s an atmosphere. There’s a history. There’s so much about Toulouse that you have to respect. We understand that.
“Toulouse hasn’t changed. There is still an atmosphere. There’s still a group of players and group of coaches and a group of supporters that love the game. They play the game with huge passion. That hasn’t changed for me.”
The former hooker adds: “They are going to be confident. They’ve got world-class players and huge size in their pack.”
That size is eye-catching indeed. Though Toulouse have not reveled in modern rugby’s more recent developments, they have not been left wanting for sheer heft in their pack.
Source: James Crombie/INPHO
Jerome Kaino is relatively lightweight by comparison in a pack containing the formidable Joe Tekori and Charlie Faumuina.
On paper, it stands to reason that Leinster will be more than capable to move those big men around until gaps reveal themselves. Fogarty is sceptical. Intensity and the unquantifiable intelligence that exists within the club and their collection of talent is not to be underestimated.
“When you watch them they’ve got lots of rugby intelligence,” says the Leinster scrum coach, his passion obvious and simmering in big gameweeks like this.