Toulouse too strong for Broncos and spoil party with huge win in double-header finale

*Photo by James Glassup

Tom Tsang suffered his first defeat as head coach of the London Broncos as his side were mauled 6-66 by French league leaders of the Betfred Championship, Toulouse.  

For the Broncos, the play-offs have been seemingly all but secured for some time now due to the teams below them in the league table taking points from one another. Despite this, London have looked considerably off the pace of the top two, epitomised by a 63-14 drubbing at the hands of Featherstone Rovers at Post Office Road last month.

Promotion looks an incredibly tall task for this Broncos side, and in all honesty anyone but Toulouse and Featherstone, but boss Tsang has looked to guide them to the impossible since the departure of Danny Ward. 

Meanwhile, French outfit Toulouse have been nothing short of dominant this season, playing rugby league at a level that no team in the Championship has been able to compete with so far. The 50-point mark in a game is pretty rarely met in such a competitive league, but Toulouse Olympique have breached it five times this season, this latest addition adding a sixth.

In fact, Toulouse have an eerie habit of scoring 66, with this being the third occasion that they’ve done so in the 2021 campaign. Perhaps then, it is no wonder that many believe it is only a matter of time before the French side grace the Super League. 

If the Broncos are to be promoted by some minor miracle, then inevitably they will have to beat at least one of the current top two. Following on from their drubbing against Fev, this contest didn’t go much better for them…

Lineups: 

London Broncos: Oliver Leyland, Abbas Miski, Chris Hankinson, Josh Hodson, Tuoyo Egodo, James Meadows, Jarrod Sammut, Greg Richards, Jacob Jones, Pat Moran, Rhys Curran, Will Lovell, Josh Walters 

Interchanges: Rian Horseman, Titus Gwaze, Daniel Hindmarsh, Jacob Ogden 

Head Coach- Tom Tsang

Toulouse Olympique: Mark Kheirallah, Jy Hitchcox, Mathieu Jussaume, Junior Vaivai, Latrell Schaumkel, Jonathan Ford, Tony Gigot, Joseph Bretherton, Lloyd White, Maxime Puech, Andrew Dixon, Dominique Peyroux, Anthony Marion 

Interchanges: Eloi Pelissier, Romain Navarrette, Justin Sangare, Joseph Paulo 

Head Coach: Sylvain Houles 

Facing a side who are unbeaten in 10 and averaging over 40 points a game is never going to be easy. What the London Broncos experienced, however, was 80 minutes of pure destruction. 

The massacre did, quite literally, start from minute one with Toulouse gaining some early territory and Anthony Marion making the pickup to get an easy score. Omens are something rarely talked about in rugby league, but if there were any, they certainly were not good. The Broncos did, however, look to try and erase those omens by getting the next score but ultimately the final pass was lacking. 

One of the players in the Toulouse set up with a host of NRL and Super League experience is USA’s Junior Vaivai, who absolutely dismantled London on a number of occasions. He started his exploitation of this Broncos side with a weaving run through the defence, showing numerous players a clean pair of heels en route to scoring his first of the game and London’s second.

A brace in quick succession from Dominique Peyroux sandwiched Vaivai’s own second try of the encounter, making it four tries in little over ten minutes for the French side. And even after some very good defence for a brief period from London, Vaivai got his hat-trick before the half-time hooter sounded, taking the ball from Jonathan Ford and grounding well.

It’s also worth noting that Mark Kheirallah was 100% successful with the boot in the first half and six conversions from six tries had the score at 0-36 come half-time, with London unable to make any attack count without even a single point in the opening 40.

There was simply no coming back from that first half, and it was only going to get worse for London. A seventh Toulouse try came within five minutes of the restart, Andrew Dixon offloading to Latrell Schaumkel for a score in the corner.

Jonathan Ford has very much been there from the start of Toulouse’s journey in the English Rugby Football League system and showed why he is still invaluable to the team with a quick-fire brace to extend his team’s lead even further.

*Photo by James Glassup

The crowd in attendance were long resigned to the Broncos fate, with many even expectant of such a rout, as is the quality of this Toulouse team. However, the Londoners were desperate to see their team score and were rewarded for their loyalty on the hour-mark courtesy of Tuoyo Egodo. He exploited a gap and dove over in the corner, much to the delight of the crowd.

Wigan Warriors loanee Chris Hankinson converted, making the scoreline to 6-54. Despite being just a mere 48 points to the good, all of the the Toulouse players, coaching staff, and even the media man were furious that they had conceded, which shows the elite mentality which they must all possess in wanting to be the best.

*Photo by James Glassup

That mentality is probably a huge part in the French team’s success so far this season and a big factor in why they continue to kill off games right until that final hooter. In the closing 20 minutes at the Ealing Trailfinders Sports Club, two more tries would come for them.

Joseph Bretherton went over the line after some silky offloads in attack, then the rout was completed when Dixon’s basketball pass set up Tony Gigot to touch down. Five tries in the second half for Toulouse, eleven in total and amazingly, Kheirallah didn’t miss once. Maximum points with the boot, and a big win in the capital to take back across the channel.

Full Time: London Broncos 6-66 Toulouse Olympique 

A genuinely masterful performance from the French side, who were nothing short of relentless in both attack and defence. In this game, they proved once again that they are an absolute cut above the Championship, and are surely Super League bound.

They always had the extra yard of pace, their positioning was spot on, the passing was accurate. The only sporting comparison I can make to it is when a boxer constantly lands stiff jabs to ground their opponent down, and every so often lands a thunderous blow to systematically tear them apart. In essence, that is exactly what happened at the Ealing Trailfinders Sports Ground. 

London will lick their wounds following Tom Tsang’s first defeat as head coach but may find small comfort in that this was somewhat of a free hit. Certainly, not many expected London to win this match, but maybe not so many expected them to lose it in the manner that they did.

That being said, it wasn’t that the Broncos played badly. On the whole, they were simply outclassed by far superior opposition. On the other hand, this does highlight a big deficit that needs to be made up if London are to somehow be successful in their play-off campaign. 

They will start the ‘road to redemption’ in trying to close that gap on the top two with a trip to Cumbria to face Whitehaven, who are the form team outside of Toulouse and Featherstone having won five of their last six outings respectively. 

Toulouse are no doubt a class act and will march on to trying to secure their status as number one seed in their quest for promotion up into Super League. Due to COVID regulations, the French outfit are yet to play at home this season which makes their achievements to date all the more impressive having to do it all on the road.

In the unlikely event that they are able to play at home this campaign though, they will next ‘host’ Halifax Panthers. However, their most probable action will next come from the Vestacare Stadium in playing relegation-threatened Oldham. If the Roughyeds are toe-to-toe with the team that turned up in London, their supporters may want to turn a blind eye, because it undoubtedly will not be pretty for them. 

A final point to make and a really important one is that despite the result for the men’s team, the double-header with the Broncos’ Ladies playing first – securing victory over Bedford Tigers – was an overall success for the club. The crowds may not have been packed to the rafters, but there was a noticeable increase from the York City Knights match a few weeks ago.

What was slightly disappointing was the turnout for the ladies game, perhaps highlighting that there is still a lot of work to be done to put Women’s Rugby League on the map. All in all though, an excellent day of Rugby League!

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