Yes, they’ve played five and won five and have landed five bonus points in their Champions Cup campaign, but they’ve also conceded the fewest number of tries.
These guys are not rugby’s Harlem Globetrotters even though they have showbiz throughout the ranks. They are a beautifully balanced team of bludgeon and rapier. They are thrilling and tremendously physical in equal measure.
They have won seven times in a row in Europe at Scotstoun, a proper fortress.
Toulon are in the midst of a lousy season where their away form has been a massive issue. In all competitions, they’ve played 12 matches on the road and have won only two.
For Toulon, who are in 11th place in France’s Top 14, this is their one shot at glory. That desperation is something Smith spoke about on Friday after he named his team. Toulon’s rage to save their season is not lost on him.
Definitely lost for Warriors is George Horne, the heartbeat at scrum-half, who has not recovered from an injury he sustained when beating the Bulls last weekend. Ben Afshar is in and 22-year-old Jack Oliver is on the bench. Oliver has seen about an hour’s action this season.
Horne’s absence could be a problem, but Smith talks like it’s an opportunity. If you’re expecting the South African to exhibit even a scintilla of concern about his injured nine then forget about it. He didn’t blink when asked. Not once.
“As much as we tried to get him [Horne] ready for this week we’ve made the clever decision to trust the boys that we’ve got,” he said, before revealing that Horne could be fit again in the next week or two.
“Both Ben and Jack have proven over the last six, seven months that they’re ready to take that baton and I’m very excited about that. I’ve honestly got all the confidence in the world [in them].”
Glasgow have never had home advantage at this stage of the Champions Cup. Their previous quarter-final appearances being heavy defeats away from home.
“Last year, we learned the hard lesson about how much it means to have that [home] advantage,” Smith said. Last season was a 52-0 loss to Leinster in Dublin.
Toulon? Well, there’s history there. Good and bad. The worst of it was the Challenge Cup final in Dublin in 2023, when the French side took Glasgow to the cleaners.
Toulon have a European pedigree that is the envy of most teams – one Challenge Cup and three European Cups in a row from 2013. Those were the galactico days – Jonny Wilkinson and Bryan Habana, Ali Williams and Bakkies Botha, Cheslin Kolbe and Sergio Parisse.
They were triumphs built on the back of foreigners rather than domestic players, a philosophy that’s anathema to Smith. Their 2013 Champion Cup winners had just three Frenchmen in their starting line-up, the same again in 2014 with the 2015 vintage having four in the first XV.
The side that walloped Glasgow in 2023 had seven, so an improvement, but still weighted heavily on the side of the imported star. They have plenty of those now, but not as many marquee ones. This season has been a surprising struggle.
“One of the big challenges of coaching in France is temperament.” Smith said. “The French mentality sometimes is different. There’s some really good teams and it’s a long year – they start in August and then they hardly stop.”
Smith was born wary, though. “They’re dangerous. They would have in their mind what they did to us the last time we played in a final [Toulon have had a big turnover in players since then, in fairness] and they’ll take motivation from that.”
They’ll certainly take motivation from the names that are not in this Glasgow team. There’s no Horne – and, so, no Horne versus Ben White duel to drool about – but also, for reasons of choice and injury, no Huw Jones, no Kyle Rowe, no Jamie Dobie, no Scott Cummings, no Gregor Brown, no Alex Craig.
