Toulouse look to bounce from Stade Francais humbling

Toulouse will be licking their wounds after taking an unexpected hiding from Stade Francais in the final game of Round 7.

It was all Stade Francais from start to finish as the determination of the home side could not be undone by a Toulouse outfit which looked half asleep in the face of their opponents’ resolve. Final score: 48-14.

Castres, on the other hand, posted a hugely valuable victory over Racing 92, emerging victorious by a margin of just two points to make the final score 28-26.

Toulouse, one would imagine, will come out firing on their home turf to make amends for an extremely disappointing performance last round which saw them surrender second spot on the table to La Rochelle.

However, it can almost be guaranteed that Castres will not make it easy for their rivals, the former still fuelled by the confidence of last weekend’s victory. They currently hold 13^th position on the log and thus need some drastic action to pull their campaign onto decent ground and would have been encouraged greatly by Toulouse’s uncharacteristically weak performance in Round 7.