Champions Cup semi-final: Exeter vs Toulouse talking points
Saturday's Champions Cup semi-finals: Racing 92 vs Saracens (1pm kick off); Exeter Chiefs vs Toulouse (3.30pm kick off)
By Michael Cantillon
Last Updated: 26/09/20 6:47pm
We take a look at the talking points ahead of Saturday's Champions Cup semi-final clash between the Exeter Chiefs and Toulouse at Sandy Park...
A new name on the trophy?
While Exeter may have created history last week by winning a European Cup quarter-final for the first time, in truth, a win at Sandy Park over Northampton was overwhelmingly expected.
This week, they do truly enter uncharted territory, however.
Their opponents Toulouse are the most decorated club of all time, have made more finals than anyone (six) and are a club with huge stature and following in France.
The Chiefs, meanwhile, will walk out for the club's first European Cup semi-final on Saturday. Toulouse, by contrast, are featuring in their 12th.
New champions of the European Cup is something that has not happened with regularity. Saracens in 2016 and Toulon in 2013 were the last sides to claim a maiden triumph, and, before that, one has to go back as far as 2009 and Leinster's' first win.
Only 11 club sides in history have earned the right to be labelled European champions - four of whom in Bath, Ulster, Brive and Northampton, have done so just once.
If Exeter can go all the way, it will be a remarkable achievement. And not least because of where the Chiefs have come from in such a short space of time.
The Chiefs had never experienced top-flight rugby until 2010 and 20 years ago - around the time Northampton were winning their European Cup - they finished ninth in the third tier, below the Met Police.
They shared a stadium with local speedway team Exeter Falcons up until 15 years ago, and as recently as 2008 or so the Chiefs were playing in front of less than 500 people.
Tipped by all to go straight back down in their first Premiership year, Exeter developed into European regulars and Premiership challengers.
They transitioned from Championship wanderers to a bona fide Premiership force, having made the last four Premiership finals in a row, and are on course to do so again this season.
Fellow semi-finalists Racing 92, who face Saracens on Saturday, are also in search of their first European Cup win, so Exeter are not alone, but there can surely be no story as incredible as the Chiefs'.
The potential is there for them to go from Championship winners to Champions Cup winners in just 10 years. But they have to beat Toulouse first - a semi-final unusually staged at Sandy Park and not a larger arena due to Covid-19, but one which will be left wanting in home crowd support.
A return to European rugby's top table for one of its aristocrats?
On several occasions throughout the history of the European Cup, Toulouse have been the side to fear.
In the first five years of the tournament between 1995 and 2000, they became champions of the inaugural competition and were near-perennial semi-finalists, developing a reputation for destroying clubs, particularly in France.
In the early 2000s, they were dominant, becoming champions again in 2003 and 2005 either side of a final defeat to Wasps in 2004.
In 2008 they would make another final, only to lose to Munster, before adding a historic fourth crown to their names in 2010.
They made the semi-finals in 2011, but then something changed.
Indeed, for some seven seasons in a row, Toulouse were absent from the final four in Europe. For three of those seasons, they failed even to make it out of the pool stages - 2015/16 saw them rock bottom of their group.
In 2012, they shockingly lost a quarter-final to Edinburgh, while in 2014 (47-23) and 2017 (41-16) they were annihilated by Munster in the last-eight stage.
In 2017/18, for the first time in history, Toulouse did not even qualify to play in the Champions Cup, having finished as low as 12th in the Top 14. And perhaps that was the catalyst for change.
Over the same time-frame that performances in Europe were getting worse, similar was happening to Toulouse domestically.
French champions in 2012, they would not make the final of the Top 14 again until 2019. Finishes dwindled from third to fourth to fifth and then to 12th.
The club was suffering, and the 2018/19 campaign proved their renaissance.
Absent from the top table for so long, Ugo Mola and Regis Sonnes' charges exploded back onto the scene last season with a series of stunning displays of attacking rugby, courtesy of a revitalised and youthful squad.
They returned to the semi-finals of Europe after a stunning win over Racing 92 in the quarters, before falling to defeat to Leinster in Dublin, but would go on to clinch the Top 14, beating Clermont in the final.
This season, Toulouse were one of only two sides to win all six pool games - Leinster the other - travelling to the likes of Montpellier, Gloucester and Connacht and sealing victories, before dispatching Ulster in the quarters, 36-8.
Only Munster (14) have reached the last four on more occasions than Toulouse now, while Toulouse have won their last seven games in the Champions Cup - the fifth time they have enjoyed a winning run of that length.
They have only won more than seven games in a row once before - an 11-game streak that spanned the 2009/10 and 2010/11 campaigns - and have not been in a European Cup final since they last won it in 2010.
It has been a long time away from the top table for one of European rugby's aristocrats, might Toulouse soon be back there?
A battle of all-out flair vs a clinical structure
One of the most fascinating aspects to Saturday's semi-final is the difference in playing styles between the two respective groups, and how that might manifest onto the pitch.
While both sides, and all their talents, are compelling to watch, they are so in different ways. The Chiefs have long been famed for their pragmatic approach. A set-piece dominated focus of accuracy, control and structure.
Toulouse, meanwhile, have focused their style on a running game. One of offloading, counter-attacking and wide attacks.
That is not to say of course, that Toulouse's hefty pack and the likes of Joe Tekori, Jerome Kaino, Cyril Baille, Charlie Faumuina, Rory Arnold and Selevasio Tolofua will not be able to impose their power on Exeter's tight phase-play.
Nor does it say the Chiefs' supremely-talented backs in Stuart Hogg, Jack Nowell, Tom O'Flaherty and Henry Slade will not be able to mix it in Toulouse's unstructured phases.
Exeter have conceded an average of 10.6 turnovers per game this season - fewer than any other side - while only Connacht and Harlequins (both 15.7) have conceded more than Toulouse (15.6).
Toulouse have made 481 metres per game on average this season, more than any other side, while they also top the charts for offloads, averaging 12.3 per game.
Whichever side can mitigate each other's talents and strengths more so, while thriving on their own, should take victory. But how that plays out is extremely hard to call.
Toulouse have some incredible talent at their disposal. Kolbe is almost certainly the best winger and finisher in the world, centres Sofiane Guitoune and Pita Ahki have been carving through for metres at ease, half-backs Romain Ntamack and Antoine Dupont have become the No 1 France pairing such is their talent, while Thomas Ramos and Yoann Huget alongside Kolbe in the back-three complete a fearsome unit.
Exeter's forwards continue to marvel. Hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie has been one of the performers of the competition this season, while second- rows Jonny Hill and Jonny Gray, tighthead Harry Williams and back-rows Sam Simmonds and Don Armand are some of the most consistent performers anywhere in Europe.
In South African flanker Jacques Vermeulen, the Chiefs have one of the form players on the continent - and his omission from Saturday's squad of 23 will undoubtedly weaken them.
What makes this clash so intriguing also is that Exeter and Toulouse have never met before.
The Chiefs will be the 12th different Premiership side that Toulouse have faced in the Champions Cup - no other team has faced more English clubs. Exeter have won five of their last six games against Top 14 opposition, including their last three in a row, while Toulouse have won their last six on the bounce against Premiership clubs.
In the kicking stakes, Toulouse's Ramos has landed 31 successful place kicks this season, more than any other player and one more than Exeter's Joe Simmonds, who has the best goalkicking success rate of any player to attempt more than five kicks (94 per cent, 30/32).
It really is a clash too difficult to pick a winner from.
