Toulouse's Byron Kelleher and David Skrela celebrate their Heineken Cup semi-final victory over Leinster
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Writing in his column in the Daily Telegraph, Brian Moore hails the rugby lesson handed down by Toulouse and Biarritz in the Heineken Cup semi-finals.
"There are those who like to classify games as darkness versus light, ambition versus force, and they would see the progress of the two French teams into the Heineken Cup final this weekend as a triumph of evil over good. They are wrong.
"The successes of Toulouse and Biarritz against Leinster and Munster respectively were based squarely on their efforts up front, but that was far from the whole story. In any event the question must also be put: so what? If teams are able to apply huge physical force and no little skill in the forward exchanges, why should this be deemed inferior to the skills shown by players whose athletic bent is fleetness of foot?
"In truth, the distinct impression from the two semi-finals was that the French teams could have played pretty much as they liked and would still have won. There was no discernible lack of effort from either of the Irish provincial sides, though Munster have not played as poorly as they did on Sunday for some time, but they were bested in the set pieces after being competitive early on."
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