TREVOR BRENNAN'S EUROPEAN DIARY RETURNS: Trevor Brennangives an insight into how his club, Toulouse, mines for hidden gems and how ruthless the system is to reach the top of the French game
The great thing about living in the south of France is that you can hop in the car and drive for four or five hours - the equivalent of Dublin to Kerry - and be on the Spanish coast. So here I am, penning this article, under clear blue skies, a hot sun, in a campsite outside our rented chalet beside a 50-metre swimming pool in Salou, just beyond Barcelona.
I'm reading one of the most inspiring books I've ever read in my life, An Unsung Hero by Michael Smith. It's about an Irishman, Tom Crean, a polar explorer and Antarctic survivor and saviour. Born in 1877 in Anascaul on the Dingle Peninsula, at 15 he joined the British Navy.
On April 24th, 1916, the day of the Easter Rising, 28 explorers were stranded on Elephant Island - a 100-metre long stone rock sticking out of the sea - when, along with five others, he spent 17 days in an open boat with no navigational equipment through 800km of rough seas.
They then trekked 240km through undiscovered territory to locate a camp of whalers and get help for those stranded on Elephant Island.
If any Munster players want any inspiration before they play Saracens on April 27th, they could do worse than read this book.
The day before, Saturday, April 26th, Toulouse will be playing London Irish in the Twickenham semi-final. Once again Toulouse are the only club flying the flag for French rugby. All the other big guns, Stade Francais, Clermont Auvergne and Perpignan, are gone.
Toulouse love this competition and have never put the French championship ahead of it unlike other sides, an example being Clermont - easily the best French side for the last two years - when they sent a second XV to Thomond Park in the pool stages.
Clermont lead the French championship by a point from Toulouse, each having won 14 and lost three games so far, with Stade Francais a further 13 points back and then Perpignan, Biarritz and Castres in the shake-up for the top four play-offs.
My own club love the H Cup because it shows the rest of the rugby world what they are about as a team and as an organisation. Let me give you an example. They have under-age teams from under-7s right up to the under-23s, who are known as the Espoirs (the aspiring players). I'm part of the coaching staff, coaching the Crabos B; who are an under-17/18 team which feeds the Crabos A.
We're 11 points clear at the top of our league, with only one defeat at Dax, when we had a lot of injuries and the A team took a few of our players. Two of the 18-year-olds with the Crabos A side, a scrumhalf and outhalf, were given their chance in front of 80,000 against Stade Francais in the French championship, and they've been training with the first team squad most of the time.
The object is to teach all the kids the Stade Toulouse way, with the emphasis on keeping the ball alive. They're all given an outline of what the club is and how they want their teams to play.
My lads would use near identical lineouts to the first team. We're also scouts on the sidelines, identifying talented young players from opposing teams as well.
Last Wednesday all the under-age coaches had a meeting with the President of the Centre de Formation as well as the coaching director, Michel Marfaing. I was quite taken aback as each coach outlined their goals for the remainder of the season, their ambitions for next season and where each team was lacking.
So I'm sitting in a room with 20 other coaches, some of whom were outlining who needed to be let go as they weren't up to the grade and what positions they needed to fill. It is a little ruthless.
Last Monday, Toulouse held an open day after placing a full-page advertisement in La Depeche and Midi Olympique. They received over 480 CVs from the ages of 14 to the Espoirs, and of those 130 were selected to come to the club's open day.
All the coaches were called in and each player was tested: height, weight, speed, strength, skills. Less than half will then make the grade to come and play for one of the club's under-age teams. You can't just walk in off the street to play for Toulouse.
Frederic Michalak, who has gone to the Sharks in South Africa, and Clement Poitrenaud, who's out for the rest of the season with a broken ankle, were two products of the Toulouse academy system and this season they've brought through a few of them.
Maxime Medart, a young outside back, reminds me of Brian O'Driscoll eight or nine years ago. Watch this kid. Hector rang me last week asking me who to back for first try scorer in the quarter-final against Cardiff - Clerc, Heymans or Jauzion - and I said Medart. He's already the top try scorer in the French championship with 13 and sure enough he scored the first try within a minute. Maxime Mermos, who can play centre or outhalf, is another kid to look out for.
The key players have been the South African Shaun Sowerby - the number eight who was signed from Stade Francais after they bought Sergio Parisse - Byron Kelleher and Jean-Baptiste Elissalde. Many people asked whether Elissalde could play outhalf but he's shown he can play nine or 10 without any problem.
Yannick Bru has moved from player to forwards coach. It reminds me of the year I joined when there was a big turnover in players. Toulouse are always evolving.
I went into the dressingroom after the game and Kelleher was up on the table singing and dancing. They've brought in a new idea where, if they win, the MP3 player is put on at full blast. That night Byron and a few of them came in to De Danu for a great night. They're all good friends and they socialise together. They look like they're having fun.
I also went in to the Cardiff dressingroom to meet up with Gareth Thomas. He gave me his jersey to give to Guy Noves but I told him to hold onto it until we got to the after-match reception, when I brought him over kicking and screaming to give the jersey to Guy himself.
Guy Noves should not have been there. On the Friday, two days before the quarter-final, being a fitness fanatic, he was out on one of his 100-mile cycles and was hit in a head-on collision by a car. He hit a tree and was knocked out. He had to be air-lifted by helicopter to a hospital and was signed in for a week. But he discharged himself late on Saturday night, presumably with doctors and nurses insisting he couldn't.
People watching the game on Sky Sports will have seen him screaming, jumping, gesticulating and prowling on the sidelines as he usually does. But, 48 hours earlier, this guy was unconscious and his bike mangled, and they reckon it was only his reflexes - when he saw the car coming and he catapulted himself off the bike - that saved his life. I feel sorry for the fella who hit him now though!
So Gareth apologised for the way he left Toulouse, Guy accepted his jersey and they had a drink and a laugh.
"I'm surprised to see you here today," said Gareth. "I heard about the accident on your bike." "Gareth, I have the mental," he said, pointing to his forehead, and then tapping Gareth on the forehead, he added: "You do not have the mental." I fell around laughing. That's just the man. He's class.
Back in Ireland last weekend, it was amazing to hear so many people talking about Guy as a potential coach of the Irish team, along with many others. He would be a fantastic choice, and with me as a Liam Brady "translator" maybe? But he'd never do it. Stade Toulouse is in his blood.
I saw my old club St Mary's lose 9-6 to Clontarf in the Leinster Senior Cup final at Donnybrook and was glad of the shelter in the impressive new stand. I had a few pints with the Da, and bacon and cabbage was on the carvery for lunch in Kielys.
It was great seeing so many familiar faces at the RDS. Rugby has changed.
A crowd of 18,500 for a Leinster-Munster Magners League match, and I've never seen a Leinster crowd so passionate, so loud, so much behind their team.
Most times when I played for Leinster we were beaten by Munster, but the Leinster forwards rose to the occasion.
They were better in their rucking, mauling, scrummaging and in their lineout options. The backrow outplayed the Munster backrow.
Watching it I thought what a pity this Leinster team aren't still in the European Cup. I also wished I was out there on the pitch. They had so much fight and hunger it made me kind of proud to be from Leinster.
Luke Fitzgerald is a great one for the future and Johnny Sexton? If he doesn't go on the summer tour as number two to Ronan O'Gara there is something wrong. And anyone who thinks Malcolm O'Kelly is finished as an international player had better think again. He was the best secondrow on the pitch by a mile.
The morning after the quarter-final, the Midi Olympique back page had declared the semi-final date, time and venue under the heading: Billets en vente des maintenant.
Tickets on sale now.
Sadly, Toulouse will only have about 500 supporters travelling, along with maybe a few French people based in London. London Irish will have the 16th man.
Everyone is saying a Toulouse-Munster final but London Irish and Saracens aren't in the semi-finals by accident. Then again, you'd have to wonder if that was the real Munster last week.
In a European Cup semi-final, a different Munster team will turn up.
Alan Gaffney will have his homework done, but Munster will know not to take anything for granted.
And if they want any inspiration, they could always read An Unsung Hero.
(In an interview with Gerry Thornley)
