Kouassi, Amati: Toulouse’s young guns win in Castres

Without Antoine Dupont, Romain Ntamack or Thomas Ramos, Toulouse fielded one of their youngest Top 14 starting XVs at Pierre-Fabre, and came away with the win.

On Saturday night, half of the Toulouse XV were under 23.6. Toulouse had not fielded such a young starting side in the Top 14 since 3 January in Perpignan, a 30-27 defeat. It is the eighth youngest XV in the club’s league history.

Five starters under 22

Kouassi, who came off the bench a week earlier against Montpellier, was making his first start, in the back row. Amati made his league debut in the centres alongside Tommaso Menoncello, before being replaced in the 50th minute by Bernardo Pucciariello, also making his Top 14 debut. Romeo Martin-Bonnard, a 20-year-old lock, finished as the game’s top tackler with 20 according to the LNR stats sheet, ahead of his captain François Cros (18).

Experience around the youngsters

The XV was not all newcomers. François Cros, 32, with 152 Top 14 games before Saturday, was captain. Alexandre Roumat (176 games), Matthis Lebel (143), Paul Graou and Juan Cruz Mallia, who started at fly-half after Ramos pulled out with a thigh injury, surrounded the young guns. Lebel scored Toulouse’s only try just before half-time, with Mallia adding a penalty.

The bench was far more experienced, with Julien Marchand, Rodrigue Neti, Théo Ntamack, Ange Capuozzo and Georges-Henri Colombe: the median age of the 23 players on the team sheet rose to 24.2.

A rare win for such a young XV

The seven Toulouse XVs younger than the one in Castres won only twice in the Top 14:

At Pierre-Fabre, Toulouse held a one-point lead for 35 minutes after Florent Vanverberghe’s converted try, and handed Castres their first home defeat of the season. They stay top of the Top 14 on 19 points and host third-placed Bayonne in round six.

Median age calculated over the 664 Stade Toulousain Top 14 games in which all fifteen starters have a known date of birth.