Toulouse dreams of hegemony, Bordeaux a magnificent outsider – Libération

After a season which once again broke attendance records, the two teams meet again this Friday June 28 in the evening in Marseille in the final of the rugby championship.

A statistic in the form of a decoy: over the last ten years, no less than seven different clubs have been crowned French champions of the Top 14. From there to imagine that no clearly established hierarchy is emerging at the top of French rugby, it is not There is only one step… which we will however be careful not to take, otherwise we risk falling to the bottom of the ravine, as the hegemony of the Toulouse Stadium has rarely seemed so blatant.

The observation which would even border on a truism if by chance the group led by Ugo Mola came this Friday, June 28 (kick-off at 9:05 p.m., live from Canal + and France 2) to raise the shield of Brennus. Which would only ever be the 23rd national title in the history of the red and black club and would even allow it to sign a new double, Top 14-Champions Cup (formerly European Cup, now extended to the southern shores of Africa) – a feat already achieved in 1996 and 2021. But for that, there is still a match to be played and it would be unseemly to look down on an opponent, the Union Bordeaux Bègles, who experienced the joyous last days preceding the meeting, since his happy victory at home, Saturday June 22, in the semi-final, against Stade Français.

Attendance records broken

Because, after three failures at this stage of the competition, UBB can no longer stand being taken for a fool (like Clermont used to be, who lost all their finals). So, by dint of saying that the club was moving upmarket (see the autumn recruitment of French winger Damian Penaud or Japanese international Tevita Tatafu), it was necessary that this also be verified on the pitch. So that, only eighteen years after its birth, UBB is today achieving its goals (or almost), without forgetting that the offspring is the result of the marriage of the illustrious Stade Bordelais and CA Bordeaux Bègles Gironde who, going back more than a century (1899 precisely!), have a combined total of nine national titles.

All this to explain that, in the prefecture of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, rugby is all the less an anomaly, that the UBB can legitimately boast (for the tenth consecutive year) the highest attendance of the season, with, in a dashing Top 14 which continues to break attendance records (2,775,951 entries during the last regular season, up 3% compared to the previous one), an average close to 28,000 spectators per match, at the Chaban-Delmas stadium . While Stade Toulouse must be satisfied with second place with just over 20,000 fans at Ernest-Wallon.

Serenity on the threshold of fullness

A podium from the stands, certainly appreciable for the seventh and first budgets of French rugby respectively, but which will not weigh heavily against the reality on the ground where, as we pointed out in the preamble, Stade Toulousain has almost never stopped running at full speed this year. Including when international competition (World Cup, then Six Nations Tournament) forced it to return all its best elements to the French XV. Because with a plethora of bench players, who responded while waiting for the return to the highest level of the French stars (the imperial Antoine Dupont at the head) once the traumatic elimination against South Africa during the last World Cup had been digested, and the contribution of foreign stars further improved on the banks of the Garonne (from the Argentinian winger Juan Cruz Mallía to the English third row Jack Willis, equally radiant), there emanates from the Stade Toulousain 2023-2024 a serenity on the threshold of plenitude, validated by the first place in the championship phase, as well as by this victory after extra time – always good for the confidence capital –, at the end of May in London, against the Irish province of Leinster in the final of the Champions Cup (incidentally less arduous than the Top 14, with its “expeditious” formula, limited to seven matches before the epilogue).

A success story which brings us to the Stade-Vélodrome in Marseille, at the time of the second Top 14 final outside Ile-de-France (after that of 2016, at the Camp Nou in Barcelona), where Bordeaux , which records the returns of opener Matthieu Jalibert and Tongan right pillar Ben Tameifuna, will however still have at least eighty minutes to dream. Even if it means suggesting to the outsiders – third in the championship phase – a preliminary visit to Notre-Dame de la Garde. That it is permissible, at the start of this volcanic summer, not only to invoke rugby: “In moments of joy, be at our side to share the joy. In the dark hours, be our beacon, dispelling the darkness of uncertainty and fear.”