Jeremy Guscott: Tiger tanks needed to halt the Toulouse titans

For a club the size of Leicester Tigers going another season without the Heineken Cup up for grabs has to be seen as a failure, and that’s why they face the unthinkable prospect of a second successive pool round exit today in a winner-takes-all showdown against the French aristocrats Toulouse.
Defeat will mean the Tigers third pool exit in four European campaigns since they lost to Leinster 19–16 in the 2009 final, and for it to happen at Welford Road would make it harder to take.
Toulouse have not done much better given their pedigree and the huge financial and playing resources available to them. They won the Heineken Cup for a record fourth time in 2010, but overall they will not be satisfied with the past four years, with one semi-final, and two quarter-final exits, including being knocked-out by Edinburgh last season.
In the early 2000s the Heineken Cup went to Tigers twice and Toulouse twice, almost becoming the property of these two giants, but that is no longer the case. Bigger forces have arrived and blown these two titans out of the way, with no respect for their standing in the competition.
That has added to the pressure and expectation on the Tigers players. The thought that is always creeping up on you when you live in a rugby mad city like Leicester is, ‘where the hell can I go out next week if we lose this one?’ Questions like that have floated around the minds of Leicester players for years, and dealing with them has been part of what makes them what they are.
There is very little to separate the teams. Both stand third in their respective leagues, below the new kids on their blocks, with Harlequins and Saracens setting the pace in the Premiership, and Toulon and Clermont doing the same in the Top 14. However, with all the talent in the Toulouse and Tigers line-ups this is pretty much Test match rugby, and in a highly atmospheric stadium it will be a pulsating contest.
Leicester pride themselves on their ability to get the edge in the set-piece and tight plays. In the first round game in October the problem was that they couldn’t run the show, and managed only a Toby Flood penalty despite Gurthro Steenkamp being binned ten minutes before half-time.
Instead, Toulouse managed to sneak a try by Gael Fickou, the 18-year-old new boy who pounced on spilt ball from Thomas Waldrom, and kicked ahead to beat the Tigers defenders to the ball for the decisive try.
It’s unlikely that either team will take an approach very different to their tried and tested tactical plan, and with so much at stake I wouldn’t expect anything radical at this stage. Toulouse haven’t been their imperious best this season, and although they’ve scored more tries than any other team in the Top 14, they’ve been a bit clunky.
However, even though they are not the smooth-running machine we’ve come to expect, looking purely at statistics Toulouse appear to have the advantage. The figures suggest they are more adventurous, beating double the number of defenders, with 18 a match on average compared to nine by the Tigers.
In defence it’s pretty even with Tigers making an average 93 tackles and missing 15, whereas Toulouse make 75 and miss nine, but at the lineout the Tigers have a clear advantage with an 88 per cent success rate against Toulouse’s 79 per cent.
The big stats surprise is at the scrum, where Leicester concentrate so much time, effort, and resources on being the dominant force. Yet, the Tigers’ success rate is 81 per cent compared to the Toulouse scrum’s 94 per cent return. So, the idea that Leicester will be able to bulldoze Toulouse is unlikely, and a plan that relies heavily on scrum dominance will require a superhuman effort by the Tigers pack.
On paper, Toulouse’s backline also has greater strike-power. Whatever the weather you have to think that a Toulouse backline comprising Clement Poitrenaud, Vincent Clerc, Florian Fritz, Yannick Jauzion, Yoann Huget, Luke McAlister and Luke Burgess – every one of them an international – cannot be kept quiet for 80 minutes. With that potency the law of averages makes it likely that one of them will produce a moment to remember and seize the day.
Clerc is a brilliant winger. He’s fast, incisive and clinical, and punches well above his diminutive stature. Fritz is a powerful, explosive hard-running centre who loves the confrontation. He won’t be daunted by the 17-stone Manu Tuilagi waiting to flatten him should he take those hard straight lines he loves. But even this midfield battle might be the supporting act when you think about the two packs waiting to collide.
Louis Picomoles is the giant No.8 who  strides around the pitch believing he owns it, and dispatches players with contempt if they dare stand in his way. He’s Toulouse’s main ball carrier and metre-maker, and Tigers have got to stop him early or get used to seeing the back of him striding away.
Tigers have to make the most of their superior lineout, and that might mean more kicking to touch to see if they can steal Toulouse ball. Geoff Parling is fast becoming an influential leader in the English pack, despite being light in the second row weight class compared to the Toulouse pair of Patricio Albacete and Yoann Maestri.
Parling’s a sharp operator and doesn’t try to do the heavy work when he’s of better use elsewhere around the park. Thankfully he knows that, and is too clever to bother with letting the macho stuff get in the way of winning the game.
It’s normally Leicester’s way to bury a team in the Welford Road mud, but try that against these Toulouse monsters and they could be having nightmares despite having Dan Cole and Marcos Ayerza on board. Tigers have to be shrewd and keep the game moving away from the tank-like Toulouse pack.
Hit-and-run, less mauling, and more movement with fewer errors than last time these two met, and the Tigers could make the last eight – but they will have to be smart to take out Toulouse.