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Cougars Look To Cause French Revolution – Toulouse Preview


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Toulouse Olympique v Keighley Cougars Match Preview by Joshua Chapman (@JRCSport)

Date: Saturday 23rd July

Time: 5:30pm (GMT)

Venue: Stade Ernest Argeles Blagnac, Toulouse.

The Super Eights get underway this Saturday across the channel as Paul March and his side look to carry on the momentum from their victory over York by putting the ghost of June’s 84-6 defeat to Toulouse to rest as they return to the Stade Ernest Argeles Blagnac.

LAST TIME OUT:

Toulouse completed their unbeaten League One regular season campaign as they eased to a 12-52 victory away at the London Skolars. A Bastien Canet double and further four pointers from Gregory White, Kuni Minga, Samy Masselot, Rhys Curran, Tyla Hepi, Kane Bentley and Mark Kheirallah as well as eight conversions from the Morrocan full-back made it 13 wins for the season in League One to go with one draw.

The Cougars put their three game losing streak to an end as they defeated crisis club York City Knights 34-28 at Cougar Park. Braces from both Jonny Campbell and Brendon Rawlins as well as a try from Andy Gabriel saw the game head into the final ten minutes tied at 28-28 but a try in the 70th minute from James Feather proved to be the winner for March’s outfit.

TEAM NEWS:

Toulouse Head Coach Sylvain Houles has made two changes to the nineteen that defeated the London Skolars a fortnight ago. Bastien Ader has recovered from a finger injury to take the place of Gavin Marguerite with Danny Hulme also returning in place of Samy Masselot. Andrew Bentley is still out however as the French side’s only long term injury concern.

Paul March welcomes Hamish Barnes back into the Cougars side following two months out with the shoulder injury he sustained in May’s victory over Hemel Stags. Paul White is also set to return after missing out against York City Knights and will take the place of Jonny Campbell whose loan extention from Bradford has yet to be confirmed. Ash Lindsay (Concussion) and Paul Handforth (Leg) will not travel to France.

KEY BATTLE:

When the French side inflicted a near club record defeat on the Cougars last month, most of the damage was caused by Olympique full-back Mark Kheirallah. The Morrocan is a true danger man for Sylvain Houles’ League One leaders but he will struggle to find a player at this level in his position who can go toe-to-toe with him like Ritchie Hawkyard.

THE COACHES:

Toulouse Olympique Head Coach Sylvain Houles: “London is a tough place to go to. The pitch is very narrow and I understand why they’ve got some good results. They are an aggressive team and have good line speed in defence and they force you into errors so I was delighted with the win.

“We’re very happy obviously to have finished the first phase on top of the league. Now we focus on the second phase and we have to start really, really well with a tough game against Keighley. We probably played our best game against them and they probably had their worst performance of the year. We know what to expect, they’re going to come looking for revenge.

“It’s up to us to be ready to make sure it doesn’t happen. They’ve got quality players so we must focus on our job. We’ve been working on our attitude this week to make sure we start this second phase very well.”

Keighley Cougars Head Coach Paul March: “I think it’s a good time to go to Toulouse, especially on the back of a good win against York. We’ve got things to prove over there, last time there we used the word ‘embarrassing’.

“The difficulty with such a short turnaround and going to France is we have six or seven players unavailable due to work, so we won’t t travel with the strongest squad. Because of the school holidays getting to France is a bit of a nightmare. Half of the squad are travelling from Gatwick and half from Manchester, so the logistics side will take its toll as well.

“It’s no secret that they’re probably the best side in the division, they’re full-time and playing with a lot of confidence. It’s about us going there and putting a performance together. We need to keep building momentum going into these seven games and if we do that, we’ve already shown that in one-off games we’ve got a squad capable of doing something.”

THE REFEREE:

The referee for this Saturday’s League One Super Eights opener in the south of France is Callum Straw from Wakefield. Straw has officiated the Cougars on two previous occassions in 2016, taking charge of our victory in the iPro Sport Cup First Round away at Wath Brow Hornets in mid-February and then our iPro Sport Cup Quarter Final victory over Oxford RL in early April.

PREDICTION:

Whilst the Cougars may not have the strongest side to take over to the south of France, the atmosphere in the camp has been massively boosted since the victory over York and with Paul March looking to right the wrongs of the last trip to Toulouse, this could be the best chance any side has of picking up the points in the south of France – KEIGHLEY BY 4.



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