By AlanQuin
January 18 2010

Only the most optimistic and blinkered Harlequin supporter will have travelled to the home of Stade Toulousain in the expectation of victory.  No visiting team has won there in the Heineken Cup since 1997, a total of over 40 successive wins for the home side.  The starting fifteen boasted over 350 international caps between them.  

Despite their best efforts Harlequins lost by 33- 21 and Toulouse strolled into the last eight of the competition yet again. They have only missed out three times out of the fifteen times the competition has been held!

In the opening exchanges, a somewhat optimistic kick for the posts from half way failed and a couple of minutes later a drop gaol attempt from Ellisalde missed its target.  But the dangers of this excellent French side were soon apparent as they sought to attack. A good counter-ruck by Quins turned over the ball and produced a scrum, The scrum produced a penalty, but Nick Evans kick was well wide.

Unforced errors from a lack of precision found Quins giving the ball away unnecessarily more than once and then conceding another penalty for not rolling away after a tackle, Once again Ellisalde’s kick missed the target.  Toulouse immediately attacked again, moving the ball skilfully, imaginatively and with great pace all across the pitch.  Another penalty against Quins at the breakdown was, perhaps, inevitable and this time Ellisalde made no mistake and opened the scoring after eighteen minutes.

Harlequins’ response followed swiftly as a pass from Tom Guest found a galloping James Percival and his pass put Mike Brown in for a try.  The French protested the latter pass was forward but merely earned an admonishment from Mr.Owen as Nick Evans added the conversion and gave Quins the lead.. 

Toulouse now began to attack in waves and even a penalty for Quins met with a counter-attack of great pace, skill and invention which took them deep into the Quins’ twenty-two and a try seemed inevitable.  The day was saved by Strettle whose tackle prevented the further offloading of the ball and gave the defence the opportunity to reorganise.  A penalty for a breakdown offence followed. Ellisalde duly took the points 6 – 7 and almost immediately following regained the lead with another penalty success.

Toulouse were looking increasingly dangerous and with four minutes of the first half remaining Heymans intercepted a pass from Mordt and set off for the Quins line with Monye chasing and rapidly overtaking.  Heymans had the skill to stop and evade the winger and offload, suspiciously forward, to Fritz who evading Strettle scored the try.  Ellisalde duly added the conversion for Toulouse to lead at half-time 16 – 7.

With the start of the second half Tom Williams replaced David Strettle.  Toulouse were now causing Quins problems in the scrum with Mr Owens finding fault with John Andress.  Ellisalde missed with a penalty kick after only a couple of minutes.

Brooker and Johnston replaced Fuga and Andress in an attempt to cure the scrum problem.  Then another strong Toulouse attack started by a break from Ellisalde was just halted a couple of metres from the line but with the ball moved left and an overlap created, Bouilhou was put in for the try.  Ellisalde converted for the lead to increase by 23 – 7     

Robshaw replaced Guest and then Ceri Jones was shown a yellow card for pulling Ellisalde’s shirt and a somewhat excessive punishment for what might have merited a penalty. It was punishment that meant that Harlequins’ task was almost impossible in the face of the mercurial Toulouse play. Michalak replaced Ellisalde and with an extra man the Toulouse attack was immediate and deadly as the overlap was created with Heymans on the end to score the try.  The conversion attempt failed.

The final quarter began with the score 28 – 7 and Dickson replaced Care.  Toulouse attacks became more and more skilful and putting the ball through more and more hands and though Michalak put Poitronaud over the line, the final pass ruled forward and the score disallowed.  But the next attack saw Fritz chip the ball through for Medard to jink through and touch down in the corner for the fourth try. The conversion again was missed. 33 – 7 with fifteen minutes remaining.  Clegg replaced Williams.

Quins did not give up and despite the mountain continued to give their all in the attempted climb.  Then the ball was moved left and reached Ugo Monye just inside the Toulouse who went round the first defender, chipped over Medard, rounded him gathered and scored.  Evans converted.

Quins resumed and continued to attack deep into the Toulouse twenty-two.  With the final play of the half the ball came right for Monye to show what a fine finisher he is as he jinked through four defenders for his second try to which Evans added the conversion.  While it was too little and too late, the final score of 33 – 21 achieved some respectability.

After the match John Kingston said of Toulouse “If they don't go all the way with the capacity they have to play at a top level, then they need to ask themselves some questions.

"I didn't think there was much between the sides in the first half and in fact, I thought we were on top in the contact area. Technically, our kicking game kept asking questions of how good a counter-attacking team Toulouse are. We had looked at how we would kick to them all week but in the end, we allowed them to get into broken field and some of their off-loading was fantastic. We could have lost by far more points than we did.”

But he was full of praise for the endeavour and commitment of his team and in respect of Ugo Monye said “Obviously he was playing for Harlequins and wanted to do well but he would have also realized that the English management would be watching this and saying if you are not playing in an international this would be the next best test. He needed to show exactly what he is and he proved that he is an absolutely top-drawer finisher.”