Top 14 Playoffs

[ruckover]

Fair play to Stade Francais, they played superbly well.

Toulon in pot two for the SDC draw now. Potential for us to miss them altogether.

[Neill_M]

Stade were very good tonight. Would love to see Clermont win the thing, but Stade will hard to beat. Parisse's pass for the try - awesome!

As was said could avoid Toulon all together, but at same time could get Sarries and Toulon in same group if we get very unlucky

[BaggyTrousers]

... but at same time could get Sarries and Toulon in same group if we get very unlucky

And what a noble endeavour it would be to put both of the b@stards out.

That's ma boy.

[Bart S]

Stade Francais have developed very nicely over the season and the play offs have shown that their pack is not one to be messed with. Thought some of the Toulon boys were showing their age in the heat out there.

Would still fancy the winners of the other semi to win it, but under Gonzalo Quesada, Stade do look like they are back among the big boys after a few years in the wilderness.

[BaggyTrousers]

They also beat Toulon early in the season by running them around the pitch at every opportunity, of course you need a decent strong pack to allow you to do that.

[solidarity]

... but at same time could get Sarries and Toulon in same group if we get very unlucky

And what a noble endeavour it would be to put both of the b@stards out.

That's ma boy.

In the words of the great Kevin Keegan, 'I would love it, I would just love it!'

[BaggyTrousers]

Stade were very good tonight. Would love to see Clermont win the thing, but Stade will hard to beat. Parisse's pass for the try - awesome!

As was said could avoid Toulon all together, but at same time could get Sarries and Toulon in same group if we get very unlucky

I'm as interested in the draw as the next man but sadly we are going nowhere next season no matter who we get. Still should have a shot at the PRO12. The SDC is literally and metaphorically out of our league.

[solidarity]

Great result, happy to see the big money fall on its face. I'm a big fan of Sergio Parisse. For his sake alone, I'd like to see Stade go on and win the thing. Is the match available on the tv somewhere this morning... ironing to do, need something to watch while doing it!

[BR]

I don't know what people's problems is with Toulon.
They are rich, good luck to them.

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[BR]

Match was supposed to be on sky last night at 00.30, but it wasn't. Bit pssed off because I decided not to watch the 2nd half live and waited for it to come on. There are highlights programmes scheduled in the next few days, but I can't see any complete matches in the schedule.

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[BR]

I don't know what people's problems is with Toulon.
They are rich, good luck to them.

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I have little difficulty with being rich.

I do have issues with their owner and his attitudes to rugby. Equally, I'm slightly "old school" in that I would rather support an Ulster team losing with a bulk of homegrown players than support a winning Ulster with 23 imports. I suppose I cling naively to the hope that I help players work towards success rather than buy it in. I fully admire what Toulon have done. For me they will always be worthy winners. But equally, I'll never have a warm place in my heart for them.

French clubs don't pretend to be representative sides the way Irish provinces do. RCT aren't the first club to be heavily financed by their owner. They have just had a more successful plan and executed it very well. I for one, am pleased to see some of the best talent in the world playing in Europe.

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[BaggyTrousers]

I don't know what people's problems is with Toulon. They are rich, good luck to them.

Let me explain, I hate Toulon, a spide owner I can look past, spide players, including The Spide, amongst the glitterati is a downer, however I could stand every bit of that.

What I hate is that the HC was killed by these b@stards & the hated evil and morbidly stupid English, the SDC is a poor imitation & worst of all, the money in France as ruined the approximation of a levelish playing field in Europe, England are struggling but heading in a similar if less well funded way, and before I die, and that won't be long, I expect the Pro12 to carry all the significance of the Irish League in wendyball.

I expect to see IRFU lose the noble aim of keeping Irish players in Ireland, I expect it to become routine for our best players to go elsewhere for big bucks and for Ulster to return to backwater status, mirroring the wee statelet itself in only ever raising it's head in the world's consciousness for terrorism & wilful open & proud intolerance .........plus the Giant's Causeway & a few golf courses. In this broken-arsed wee statelet with a disastrous wee penny share economy, there is absolutely no chance of us ever reaching major international sponsors.

Of all of that, Toulon epitomise the reasons for European Rugby heading in this direction.

BR, you are clearly a free market fan and that has, on the face of it, a bizarre appealing innocence in a person, apparently believing that might is right & should be lauded, not a single thought for what it will mean. You might even be a bean counter with that outlook. Odd train of thought, of course, especially to the more considered thinker, but that is why "people" & this person in particular "hate Toulon".

Sometimes being a visionary has it's drawbacks, I accept that, it's a cross I've borne as well as I can but I've always been a big picture man, but being extremely lazy, I leave the details to worker bees. Sadly Ulster Rugby appears bereft of visionaries, wee workers running around in ever decreasing circles up their own jaxies, the odd bright thought but no execution.

BR, you've been helped.

[BR]

France has been a free market for years, including when RCT were languishing in the lower division. Why blame RCT in particular for simply making a success of the environ in which they found themselves?

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[Snipe Watson]

We have clashing rugby philosophies. France and England are at odds with the rest of the global game. Where the rest of the world remained under union control, the English and French went laissez faire. There is no answer and it will not change until the markets in France and England fail, if they fail.

[BaggyTrousers]

France has been a free market for years, including when RCT were languishing in the lower division. Why blame RCT in particular for simply making a success of the environ in which they found themselves?

Again BR you are simplifying the issue, it isn't simple & it's dictating the direction European Rugby will take.

However, Toulon, I don't blame them in particular, I blame them as being the standard bearer, but mainly it's the newfangled wealthy owners that are the Anglo-French problem & Toulon happen to have the most despotic & nonsensical of all. I'm certain the Toulon fans, having met them many of them at Twickenham - well a decent sample let's say - clearly they are just enjoying the ride, no issue with their fans, unlike Glasgows.

Toulon happen to be the team who have dominated this new dispensation.

If the owners were content to run their own clubs, once again, I could tolerate that, but increasingly they are wanting to run European Rugby, they have already battered their respective Unions into submission, England more finally than the French & the "poor" Unions have just had to like it or lump it, some more easily than others, having been bought off - the avaricious Scots a classic example. The Union strong SH countries are our best hope of warding off these pirates from colonising the game.

The fact of the matter is they are hell bent on turning rugby from a competitive sport with many "big teams" coming and going, coming back again on a cyclical basis but where there has been "hope for all" to have one or more seasons in the sun, into a sport with dominant clubs that dominate eras, much like football has now a pretty predictable set of top clubs who dominate.

It's as I posted in my previous effort, a pretty grim future with the smaller countries eventually merely nurseries for the mighty to plunder for talent to supplement their own.

It's an obvious truth and as good a reason as any to be saying "Down with this sort of thing".

Ironically, it is already showing effects at international level, for a limited, well coached Ireland to have won successive 6Ns titles, suggests that both France & England, especially France, are running into the difficulties that limited opportunities for their own citizens are creating. How long will it be before we hear cries against "immigration" in rugby?