England and Toulouse flanker Jack Willis was bitterly disappointed at how things unfolded on Sunday as Champions Toulouse found themselves booted out of the Investec Champions Cup.
It was a brutal display from Bordeaux Begles, who ran out 35-18 victors over their fellow Top 14 club, courtesy of tries from Pete Samu, Louis Bielle-Biarrey (2), Pierre Bochaton and Ben Tameifuna.
Tough one to take
The result sets up a finale between Bordeaux and Premiership outfit Northampton Saints, who stunned Leinster in Saturday’s semi-final.
“Yeah, it was a bit of a gut punch,” Willis commented after the match.
“It’s a tough one to take, but Bordeaux played really well and dominated us around the ruck area, which hurts.
“They kicked brilliantly and put themselves in some great positions with clever field kicks and then applied pressure after that, and we struggled to get a proper footing as a result.
“And, one thing that didn’t help was the try directly after half-time. We spoke about exactly this at the break, knowing we were still in the game, and to retain focus- so to then concede directly at the beginning of the second half is certainly not ideal- although even by saying that we had ample opportunity to get ourselves back into a position.
No excuse and Lions’ hopes
Toulouse were without their inspirational skipper Antoine Dupont for the fixture, with deadly accurate placekicker and full-back Thomas Ramos also sidelined. The in-form Blair Kinghorn was also sidelined for the match, but Willis says that while the injuries hurt the title holders, they were not using it as an excuse.
“Last year was incredible, but that was last year. It’s not this year and we had an opportunity today to go and put ourselves in the final, and we didn’t pull through. So let’s have a look at what went wrong and see what we can do for the rest of the rest of season,” he continued.
“I know we were missing players but I don’t think we want to sit behind excuses. Every team has injuries, and yes, we’ve had some pretty special players go down, but we had a team today that could have come out of this match on the right side and we had confidence that we could.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t deliver as a group, and that’s where we’re at.
“I don’t think it changes in terms of us wanting to go after the Top 14. We’re in a good position in the league at the moment, but you’ve got two options, really, after a loss like this. You can sort of fold over and just trickle into the end of the season, or you can rally together and go after one more competition that we’re still in, and that’s definitely the mentality that we’ll be trying to apply.”
With the 38 players for the 2025 British and Irish Lions named on Thursday, May 8th, much speculation still abounds about Willis and if he’ll be named in that party.
Jack himself, and his club Toulouse, have both gone on record in terms of confirming availability but until it’s named, Willis is playing things down.
“Thursday? What’s happening then?” he quipped.
“Me- I’ll be at training, mate. Or having a cup of tea.”