The game: 43-19
After winning four Shields of Brennus and three European Cups, the Toulonnais won Friday night in Dublin the only title that was missing from their list after a one-way Challenge Cup final, locked in less than a half. -hour. It must be said that the Scots of Glasgow were excellent sparring partners, for fifty-five minutes. And it is not for lack of having tried to cross the hermetic Var curtain between the 30th and the 54th.
Ten times, therefore, the Caledonians were in a position to score, and their impotence ended in the 56th thanks to their captain and winger Kyle Steyn. The Toulonnais, they built their success in the first period in the wake of their scrum half Baptiste Serin. They took Glasgow by the throat and led 21-0 from the twenty-first minute after a one-team-show before suffering but never really breaking, unleashing a few paying attacks at the end of the match.
The Scots waited half an hour before entering this final and then almost an hour before scoring three tries (56th, 69th, 74th), including a brace from their South African winger and captain Kyle Stein. Dominated in the physical impacts, they nevertheless received three more, signed Jiuta Wainiqolo (58th) on a cross from Cheslin Kolbe, Nayacalevu Waisea (64th) in power, then Ihaia West in finesse (78th).
Twelfth French club to win this competition after Bourgoin, Colomiers, Clermont (3 times), Pau, Biarritz, Montpellier (2 times), Stade Français and Lyon, the RCT saves its season: whatever happens next week during the last day of Top 14, the Varois (currently eighth in the standings) will compete in the Champions Cup next season.
5
After four unsuccessful finals (2010, 2012, 2020, 2022), the RCT won the Challenge Cup.
The player: Baptiste Serin put on a show before his injury
From the start, the international scrum half scored the first Var try (5th) close to a ruck and did it again twenty minutes later (24th). After the exit of Dan Biggar on concussion, he left no one to transform his tests and also that of Parisse (19th). A sharp orchestrator, Baptiste Serin (29, 43 caps) was the great architect of Toulon’s success and could have continued his momentum but, injured in the left ankle, he had to limp off the field at the break (40th), replaced by Benoît Paillaugue. At his debit, a penalty goal, forty meters in front of the posts (10th).