Stade Toulouse crushes Exeter and will play a sixth semi-final in a row in the competition

The last French representative in the Champions Cup, Toulouse held its place against the English on Sunday, scoring nine tries in the quarter-finals at the Ernest-Wallon stadium.

They still had the 2020 semi-final lost in England in an extremely restrictive health context across the throat. Against the Exeter Chiefs, the Stade Toulouse players took their revenge (64-26), Sunday April 14, by winning a Champions Cup quarter-final held for only one half in the humidity of the Ernest Stadium -Walloon.

Leading by one point at the break (17-16), the Rouge et Noir accelerated after returning from the locker room, scoring four tries in ten minutes thanks to a double from Blair Kinghorn (48th, 55th), the ball flattened by Pita Ahki on a perfect service from Matthis Lebel (52nd) and a devastating hook from Antoine Dupont (58th, 45-19).

Enough to take shelter for good and manage a quiet end to the game, where the only challenge was to recover the record for points scored in a European Cup quarter-final set the day before in Gironde (83). A bar which ended up being crossed, while Toulouse found the end zone for the eighth time in the afternoon (nine in total, two for Exeter).

Harlequins on the menu for the semi-finals

A festival for the 200th European match at the Stadium, which was hard to imagine after the first forty minutes. Despite a dive in the goal by Romain Ntamack (8th), which justified the choice of Ugo Mola to start him at the opening for the third time in a row, the Chiefs remained in the game for a long time.

The fault was a warning addressed to Toulouse’s Peato Mauvaka, penalized for the collective work of his teammates, offside in front of the score line, which allowed the English to come back on the following penalty played manually and flattened by Ethan Roots (17th). While Jack Willis crushed Harvey Skinner to add five more points (32nd), the sixth in the Premiership responded to the foot in the first period. A game plan which ultimately did not last long.

Thanks to this demonstration of strength, in continuation of previous outings in the Champions Cup this season, the Haut-Garonnais reached the final four of the competition for the sixth consecutive time. They will host Harlequins, winners of Union Bordeaux-Bègles on Saturday, before a possible final against the winner of Leinster-Northampton in London.