The maître d’ said non, but over his shoulder the one table in the harbour-side restaurant was only getting going.
few hours after they’d brought Leo Cullen and Brian O’Driscoll’s European careers to a shuddering halt a few hundred metres away at the Stade Felix Mayol, the Galacticos of RC Toulon and their wives and children gathered at a table that stretched the length of the place to toast their success.
A who’s who of the best in the game; millions of euro of professional talent; the Armitage brothers, Jonny Wilkinson, Matt Giteau, Jean Martin Fernandez Lobbe, Drew Mitchell, Mathieu Bastareaud and Juan Smith, united under the management of Bernard Laporte and ready to conquer Europe for the second time.
They’d repeat the trick a year later, completing Europe’s only three-in-a-row. A brief, shop-bought golden era on the Côte d’Azur.
It was a strange set-up, but for a while it worked beautifully. Firebrand president Mourad Boudjellal was almost as famous as the players, taking the post-match press conference before any of the coaches could speak in a cramped, overheated dressing-room beneath a crumbling stadium above.
Boudjellal believed in investing in players and had little time for infrastructure, meaning the Mayol was a heaving, old-style concrete effort packed with fans who chanted the club’s unique ‘Pilou Pilou’ before kick-off. Earlier, they gathered outside to welcome the team buses. The players got out and walked through the noisy throngs, part of the pageantry of the day.
When Matt O’Connor’s side used a side entrance, it became part of the post-match analysis of a 29-14 defeat.
“The side entrance!” Cullen recalled with a wry smile yesterday.
“As if we chose to go in the side entrance! A lot was made of this at the time. We had no choice when the bus pulled up. I was waiting to get pulled up at the ground that day, thinking, ‘I can’t wait to go through this crowd’ and the bus kept going around the side to the back of the stand and you could hear the chanting at the other side of the ground. That’s where we got dropped off.
“It was almost like it was our decision to do that, but it wasn’t.
“I was really looking forward to it, then the bus goes in a different direction – I don’t know who organised that.”
When the game was up against Toulon, the locals let you know by tossing newspapers up in the air. That moment came when Leinster mucked up a lineout on the edge of the opposition’s ’22 and within seconds Mitchell was scoring at the other end.
That was the first of four meetings between the sides in four years. Cullen came on as a second-half sub in the first, was forwards coach when the teams met in the 2015 final and had been promoted to head coach when they were drawn together in the 2015/’16 pools.
Toulon remain the only team Leinster have never beaten in their illustrious rugby history. That should change on Friday.
Rudi Wulf is the only survivor from the Toulon of old in their starting XV. Boudjellal has sold up in the past couple of years and new owner Bernard Lemaitre is a far more low-profile figure who has built a state-of-the-art training-ground to replace the dilapidated set-up that once hosted the great and the good of the world game.
Supplanted by Saracens as the dominant force on the European stage, they reached the Top 14 final in 2016 and 2017, losing both, as they shed many of their expensive imports and focused on bringing more French talent through.
Partly, that was enforced by budgets as the likes of Lyon and Montpellier tried to replicate the Toulon model, while the ‘JIFF’ rules on how many overseas players a team can have in their squads have meant that teams need to have French players.
The presence of World Cup winners Ma’a Nonu and Eben Etzebeth and Italy legend Sergio Parisse ensure there’s still a bit of stardust on the Côte d’Azur. But there is a growing French legion under old-school coach Patrice Collazo, with France skipper Charles Ollivon, giant second-row Romain Taofifenua and bright young thing Louis Carbonel – seen as a contender for the France No 10 shirt for the next decade – all driving things on.
Scrum-half Baptiste Serin, however, is the man who makes things tick. While Antoine Dupont may be the star of the national team, his deputy is one of the most influential players in the Top 14 and he’s central to what Toulon do.
After finishing ninth in 2018/’19, they’re on a gradual upward curve but they remain inconsistent and there’s a feeling that they are not yet ready to take on the Leinsters of this world just yet – particularly without the injured Carbonel and suspended Nonu.
They still have a huge budget and lots of good players, but the club looks and feels a bit different now.
“They thought it worked pretty well when they won three European Cups, so it’s hard to know!” Cullen said of the change of model.
“It depends on where you’re starting from. Toulon more recently have invested a lot more in their younger players and they’ve produced a lot of young talent.
“In that area of France they have a huge catchment area, so they do bring in a lot of their own local players, so they definitely have evolved over the course of time. Their model, when they were hugely successful, they had an unbelievable roster.
“They’re a team that we’ve struggled with in the competition, maybe not that so recently … When you see their squad still, the likes of Etzebeth in the forwards, Parisse, the experience that those guys have at the very highest level.
“They have a number of guys in the French squad, (Francois) Gros, Serin at 9, Taofifenua in the second-row, (Swan) Rabbadj who can play in the second-row as well, (Gabin) Villière I see is back and is someone who has come through a very unorthodox route … They have a bit of a mix of everything, really.”
Nobody gets to lord it over Leinster five times in a row, do they? Cullen may not be able to dine out this Good Friday if his team finally beat Toulon, but even a fish and chips on the way home from the RDS would taste better if they can get that particular monkey off their back.
Toulon’s unblemished record against Leinster
Heineken Champions Cup quarter-final, 2013/’14
Toulon 29 Leinster 14,
Stade Felix Mayol
TOULON – D Armitage; D Mitchell, M Bastareaud, M Giteau, D Smith; J Wilkinson (capt), S Tillous-Borde; X Chiocci, C Burden, C Hayman; D Rossouw, J Suta; J Smith, J Fernandez Lobbe, S Armitage. Reps: J-C Orioli, F Fresia, M Castrogiovanni, V Bruni, B Habana, M Mermoz, M Claassens, K Mikautadze.
LEINSTER – R Kearney; F McFadden, B O’Driscoll, G D’Arcy, D Kearney; J Gopperth, E Reddan; C Healy, R Strauss, M Ross; D Toner, M McCarthy; R Ruddock, S Jennings, J Heaslip (capt). Reps: S Cronin, J McGrath, M Moore, L Cullen, J Murphy, I Boss, I Madigan, Z Kirchner.
Semi-final, 2014/’15
Toulon 25 Leinster 20
(after extra-time), Stade Velodrome
TOULON – L Halfpenny; D Armitage, M Bastareaud, M Giteau, B Habana; F Michalak, S Tillous-Borde; X Chiocci, G Guirado, C Hayman (capt), B Botha, A Williams; J Smith, JM Fernandez Lobbe, C Masoe. Reps: JC Orioli, A Menini, L Chilachava, S Armitage, D Mitchell, R Wulf, M Claassens, J Suta.
LEINSTER – R Kearney; F McFadden, B Te’o, I Madigan, L Fitzgerald; J Gopperth, I Boss; C Healy, S Cronin, M Ross; D Toner, M McCarthy; J Murphy, S O’Brien, J Heaslip (capt). Reps: R Strauss, J McGrath, M Moore, B Marshall, D Ryan, I Boss, G D’Arcy, Z Kirchner.
Pool stages, 2015/’16
Toulon 24 Leinster 9,
Stade Felix Mayol
TOULON – D Armitage; B Habana, M Bastareaud, M Nonu, D Mitchell; M Giteau, E Escande; F Fresia, G Guirado, M Stevens; S Manoa, R Taofifenua; M Gorgodze, S Armitage, D Vermeulen. Reps: A Etrillard, X Chiocci, L Chilachava, J Smith, T Taylor, M Mermoz, A Meric, J Suta.
LEINSTER – R Kearney; F McFadden, B Te’o, L Fitzgerald, I Nacewa (capt); J Sexton, I Boss; C Healy, R Strauss, M Ross; D Toner, M McCarthy; R Ruddock, J van der Flier, J Heaslip. Reps: S Cronin, J McGrath, M Moore, T Denton, J Murphy, E Reddan, I Madigan, D Kearney.
Leinster 16 Toulon 20,
Aviva Stadium
LEINSTER – R Kearney; D Kearney, B Te’o, L Fitzgerald, I Nacewa (capt); J Sexton, E Reddan; J McGrath, R Strauss, M Ross; D Toner, M McCarthy; R Ruddock, J van der Flier, J Heaslip. Reps: S Cronin, C Healy, M Moore, T Denton, J Murphy, N McCarthy, I Madigan, Z Kirchner.
TOULON – D Armitage; B Habana, M Bastareaud, M Nonu, D Mitchell; M Giteau (capt), E Escande; F Fresia, G Guirado, M Stevens; J Suta, R Taofifenua; J Smith, S Armitage, D Vermeulen. Reps: A Etrillard, X Chiocci, L Chilachava, M Gorgodze, JM Fernandez Lobbe, T Taylor, S Tillous-Borde, K Mikautadze.
