The Toulousains inflicted on Racing 92 an irrevocable defeat on Friday. They will play a third final in four editions.
The boss favorite. Never worried, Stade Toulouse made short work of a desperate Racing 92 (41-14), Friday June 9 in the semi-finals of the Top 14 in San Sebastian (Spain). In a stadium entirely committed to its cause, and with five tries scored, Toulouse enforced the logic of the regular season, equaling the largest point difference in the final stages under the single pool (since 2004). Two years after their last Brennus, the Rouge et Noir will try to win a 22nd star on June 17, at the Stade de France. They will challenge La Rochelle or Bordeaux-Bègles, who face each other on Saturday.
And yet, they had room. Infinitely superior to Racing, Toulouse have allowed themselves to misplace a lot of ammunition or overplay. As a symbol of the abyssal gap between the two formations, the Stadium allowed itself to blow its stalwarts Antoine Dupont and Romain Ntamack for a good quarter of an hour, as if it were a banal match of regular season. The final outcome of this unbalanced half had not been in doubt for a long time.
Because the Stadium had treated its copy earlier, scoring on a dazzling of Matthis Lebel (18th), by the power of an elusive Emmanuel Meafou (23rd), by Alexandre Roumat (50th), in support of a limpid movement embellished by many repeats, or Arthur Retière (57th), the only one to have felt a supersonic chistera from Dupont. On these actions, each time the impression emerged of a Toulouse team in control of its destiny, capable of scoring when it wanted to without overdoing it.
He missed “absolutely everything” at Racing
Looking for more would have come to nothing, if not at the risk of injury, as the Toulousans had fun with the shortcomings of a Racing 92 far from the mark. “What did we miss? Absolutely everything”sighed, half-heartedly, a distraught Gaël Fickou in the mixed zone.
A clear summary of the poor performance of the Ile-de-France club, “saved” from total wreckage by two late tries at the end of the match devoid of interest, flattened by Gaël Fickou (70th) and Ibrahim Diallo (76th). Finn Russell’s teammates, ghostly for his last at the club, even fell back into their traps on the siren, for a test by François Cros (80th), anecdotal but highly symbolic.