Gloucester upset four-times champions Toulouse in a classic Heineken Cup meeting at Kingsholm on Friday night. Despite the 34-24 loss, Toulouse have qualified for the quarter finals. Below are highlights of a game that featured some wonderful tries.
Things didn't start according to plan for Gloucester as they lost prop Nick Wood to the sin-bin with just one minute on the clock. His wreckless use of the boot on a player put the home side at an immediate disadvantage, but it came to nothing as they scored first after a frantic bit of play by dynamic winger Timoci Matanavou. Jonny May swooped to score his first of two tries on the night.
May and Charlie Sharples featured strongly for the home side as the speedsters not only scored some great tries, but both contributed towards an excellent overall team effort. Freddie Burns was also prominent as he scored 14 points with the boot.
"That was a great performance," said Gloucester head coach Bryan Redpath. "We knew they had picked a big, physical side and we showed them a lot of respect. I thought numbers one to 23 - our substitutes that came on made a big difference as well - were great. I am delighted for the boys because we finished off the Heineken Cup in style.
"Freddie has been improving over the past six or seven weeks, and he has been learning to do things other than the fancy stuff. In general terms, he controlled the game pretty well. Jonny is in the top two try-scorers in the Premiership, and he has probably scored a few in the Heineken and LV= Cup. With Charlie as well, our back three were dangerous tonight," he added.
While Gloucester exit the competition after finishing third in Pool Six, Toulouse have qualified as pool winners after Harlequins’ surprise defeat at the hands of Connacht.
Below are extended highlights from a fantastic game of rugby. Enjoy.
Sun 22 Jan 2012 | 09:30
Gloucester and Toulouse play out a classic at Kingsholm
17 Comments
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jeppy893:43 AM 29/01/2012
ah this is going to be the hardest 6 nations for me to watch and pick as a fan. I grew up living and playing for dursley rfc
charlie sharples and ben morgan came from that same dursley side but as a gloucester boy i just cant pick who should play 8 for england. both ben and narraway would both be huge assests as far as i can see.
any thoughts? -
stroudos7:47 AM 28/01/2012
Well, if we're all being pedantic, actually the "C" sound in Fijian is pronounced like the "TH" in the word "the", but the French find this difficult to pronounce because the sound doesn't exist in French.
Can a French-speaker clarify why he was being mentioned? (It's around 6:25). Obviously wasn't on the pitch and I thought he was still out with an injured knee. It sounded like they were mentioning the score of an Agen game, "32-26 with a fantastic Caucaunibuca". Have Toulouse lent him back to Agen while he comes back from injury or something then? Was the implication that if Caucau had played it would've been harder for Sharples to score in that part of the pitch?
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matthew6:09 PM 27/01/2012
If he plays like this in most games then I won't exactly be disappointed if he joins us here in Northampton next season!
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charliebah12:15 PM 23/01/2012
Great video, thanks RD!
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cheyanqui3:39 AM 23/01/2012
Loved the Qera flick pass -- too bad it didn't finish in a try.
Narraway 1st dummy pass (off the scrum centre) -- brilliance. I wonder if he should have tried to chip kick for the corner.
Narraway's 2nd dummy pass looked like right out of the Noa Nadruku / Carlos Spencer playbooks.
And in terms of the quality of the telecasts -- I can learn more about how a rugby game went watching a French feed with the sound muted, than I do watching those cheesy British feeds.
And if I unmute a British telecast and hear Stuart Barnes, I learn even less.
(Austin Healy's a bit of a twat, but at least he livens up the discussion.)
Lastly, did anyone hear the French commentators say "SOW-SOW-KNEE-BOO-SAH"? -
bunn2:04 AM 23/01/2012
Fantastic game to watch with both teams pulling out the tricks to score some scorchers!
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reality11:36 PM 22/01/2012
I couldn't agree more. I'm sick of the Skysports slow-motion of people doing absolutely nothing. I mean it's ok for big tackles and stuff like that, but normally they just show them walking or talking or something not at all exciting, so having it in slow-motion is just stupid. But even for big tackles, if you slow it down then you don't know what the impact was actually like, so I'd prefer to see it in realtime. And you're right about the highlights in saying that Canal+ do them better. On the BBC or Sky ones they always show a try, then 3 replays of it, and then there's no time left for anything else. I'd much prefer to see how the try was created, and only see a replay if the grounding was spectacular or was referred to the TMO.
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stroudos9:36 PM 22/01/2012
I see Narraway has now been drafted into the England squad as cover for injured Tom Wood. No more than he deserves. As a proper No8 I think he should have been in there already. Absolutely outstanding in this match.
Always get a pang of regret watching james Simpson-Daniel - if only he hadn't got so many injuries at crucial times during his peak, (also I think there were times when he was fit but coaches didn't seem to fancy him), he could have been sensational for England. Probably still could be but now you've got people like Charlie Sharples who must come in as longer term options.
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stroudos8:15 PM 22/01/2012
I love the Canal+ commentary. Also the production/editing is so much better than, for example, BBC & Sky Sports. Here we have nearly ten minutes of highlights of the actual rugby, including build-up to tries. Contrast with the highlights I expect BBC will put out during the six nations which will no doubt spend >25% of the total highlights reel showing moody close-ups of flyhalves pensive faces as the contemplate the posts. BBC and Sky also very fond of showing a player crashing over the line with no sense of context as to how it all came about. Canal+ use slow-motion replays to show the turnover, tackle, ruck-work, scrum etc that helped to create the try-scoring opportunity; BBC/Sky will use the same amount of slow-motion replay time to show us the excessive celebration of the person who happened to be in the right place to finish it off.
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sithepie7:57 PM 22/01/2012
C'est magnifique! What a performance. Cracking game.
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moddeur7:21 PM 22/01/2012
Actually the commentary here is quite professional and unbiased (enthusiastic about both teams on the field) because this game was televised on Canal+ which is a paying channel. The non-paying equivalent, ie. public channel France2, which shows a few HC games and the VI nations tournament, offers a much more biased (pro-French) commentary.
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6:31 PM 22/01/2012
wow, this lookslike it was a great match to watch.
i must say, i really enjoy the exuberant, unbiased french commentary. they are as excited about the great rugby played by the english as they are by the french. in general, they are excited by good rugby. the ozzies and kiwis could learn something from these guys.
also, impressed with dusatoir's pace, he exploded to the line.
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colombes5:23 PM 22/01/2012
wonderful match!
This HC pool 6 has offered some of the best matchs of the last months with toulouse, harlequins, gloucester and the connacht brave minnows
both teams never stopped to play during 80 minutes. Toulouse should have played more strategically, and they would have won it easily. but as matanavou, they took too much risks in defence, and followed the "fire" rythm of gloucester in attack
all credits to connacht and gloucester for respecting rugby despite their eliminations -
aachensaints4:38 PM 22/01/2012
Can't wait to see Charlie Sharples on the wing for England against Scotland
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2:35 PM 22/01/2012
Is it me or the gloucester n8 pulled off a "carlos spencer"? Magic.
This seems to have been a cracking game, this heineken cup just seems to get more and more exciting. Cant wait for the quarterfinals -
reality2:27 PM 22/01/2012
Who would have ever thought that Toulouse would be thanking Connacht for helping them qualify? This Heineken Cup...you just never know what to expect.
This looks like a really great match. Toulouse seemed to be all over them in the scrums; I wonder why they didn't try to get a few penalties out of it instead of immediately picking the ball. That back three for Gloucester though seem to be wonderful. I enjoyed Connacht versus Harlequins but I think this might have been slightly more exciting. -
guy12:27 PM 22/01/2012
Loved the part where advantage was being played that resulted in a try. Great highlights overall, must have been a cracker!