Saint-André lauds Blues' experience
Sun, 23 May 2010 18:59
Shining brightly: Jonny Wilkinson is one of Toulon's world stars
Toulon Director of Rugby Philippe Saint-André claimed Cardiff Blues' big-match experience helped them to come from behind and deny his side a European title in front of a record 48,990 Amlin Challenge Cup crowd in Marseille.
Toulon led 13-6 at half-time at the Stade Veledrome only to be beaten 28-21 after three second period tries put the game just out of their reach.
But despite clearly being hugely disappointed with the outcome of Sunday afternoon's showpiece, Saint André had no complaints when it came to the efforts, if not the performance, of his players.
"I feel very proud of the players. Yes we have lost this final but the players have still achieved a lot this season by reaching the semifinals of the French Championship and a European final," said Saint-André, who led Sale Sharks to Challenge Cup success back in 2005.
The Toulon coach added: "We made a number of changes from last week's loss in the Championship semifinal and, unfortunately, those coming in didn't produce a good enough performance.
"Cardiff Blues are a very good team who are more used to playing in these big games than us after their experience in the Heineken Cup. When they had opportunities to score, they did.
"We should have been 20 points ahead by 50 minutes but we were only seven."
Saint-André highlighted Juan Fernandez Lobbe's decision to take a quick tap penalty after 49 minutes as one of the key moments in an enthralling encounter, although he won't be blaming his inspirational skipper.
Lobbe's decision eventually led to a back injury for star flyhalf Jonny Wilkinson who picked up the knock in the resulting passage of play.
England's World Cup winning hero was forced off the field a minute later and Toulon looked somewhat lost without their high-profile playmaker.
"We will certainly look at the penalty we had early in the second half when Juan Fernandez Lobbe ran the ball," Saint-André told ercrugby.com.
"If we had kicked the penalty, we could have been 10 points ahead and perhaps Jonny Wilkinson would not have been injured. But it is easy to look at the decisions after the game.
"At such a high level of game, you have to score when you're on top and we didn't. We will learn from this game and come back stronger next season."