On Saturday afternoon, Ugo Mola’s players lost (20-26) against Northern Ireland’s Ulster in the first leg of the Champions Cup round of 16.
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All is not lost, but it is a very big Toulouse stadium which will have to come to Ireland for the return match if it wants to hope to win its ticket for the next round of the Champions Cup. By falling at the Stadium (20-26) against Ulster on Saturday April 9, in the round of 16 first leg, Antoine Dupont’s teammates are on an unfavorable waiver for the quarters. The defending champion is condemned to a victory on Northern Irish soil next weekend.
Indeed, the new formula concocted by the EPCR (the governing body of European rugby) offers the qualifying place to whoever has scored the most points at the end of the two rounds. In this race, the test planted by Romain Ntamack at the very end of the game (80th) will necessarily be valuable. “Six points to catch up is better than thirteen, but it’s a shame because we wanted to do better”summed up the third line François Cros at the microphone of France 2 after the meeting.
In the hard for a few weeks, the Stade Toulouse has nevertheless shown a much better face. Carried by an omnipresent Pita Ahki and a very strong Thomas Ramos (10 points) – author, among other things, of a fantastic comeback at the end of the game which could have overturned the match – the Reds and Blacks opened the scoring through the second row Emmanuel Meafou (7-0, 7th) after a very good fixation from Romain Ntamack.
Long solid in the scrum and trickster in the ground game to annihilate Northern Irish opportunities, the Rouge et Noir ended up being overwhelmed. The red card conceded by his Argentinian winger Juan Cruz Mallia from the 11th minute probably ended up weighing on organizations that could no longer fill the gaps. It is also another winger who feasted on these spaces left. Robert Baloucoune made his rods and his power do the talking to slam a hat-trick and allow his team to remain undefeated in the Champions Cup.
Stade Toulousain had not lost at home in the final phase of the European Cup since the 2005-2006 season.