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This French championship means a lot to the guys and every year the minimum expectation is that Stade Toulousain reaches the semi-finals, from the spectators, the players and the people of Toulouse in general.
Pau threw everything at us for 20 minutes but we eventually came good. I was happy to cross the line myself just before half-time, thanks to a nice pass inside from Nicolas Jeanjean running up the left wing. At half-time we were ahead by 20 points, and the coach told us there were going to be a few changes ten minutes into the second-half.
I was one of those changes, with the local hero Christian Labit coming on for me. When he ran on the chants from the Stade Toulousain fans at the end where they have the drums echoed around the ground were "Christian, Christian, Christian". They love this guy and, what do you know, with his first touch he crosses the line down that end of the pitch, waving to them after scoring as they went absolutely mad.
The guys have nicknamed him 'l'Espagnol', after Russell Crowe in The Gladiator. It suits him. If I had to go into war tomorrow he'd be the first guy I'd have alongside me. He's as hard as nails.
The following week, when we played Biarritz, was a busy week for me moving house. It's not fun but a few of the lads chipped in, notably the Maka brothers. I got a truck from one of the sponsors and had it done in two days. Being a rugby player in France sometimes has its perks.
On the Thursday I decided to relax and I hit the beach with Paula and the boys, Roger Rooney from the pub and his family. His wife Marie is a fantastic cook, and en route we stopped for a picnic just outside Carcasogne overlooking the castle. It was fantastic. She'd packed an Irish honey-baked ham, and an 'oul glass of rose went down well. A guy could easily forget he had a championship game two days later
An hour later we hit the beach in Narbonne. My first visit there and a beautiful beach. We didn't leave the beach until 10.00 that night, tucking into the rest of the food, but while they got stuck into the rose I got stuck into the water.
Biarritz had already qualified for the semi-finals, so they rested a couple of players and we beat them 34-20 back in Le Stadium, where we beat Munster. Everybody in the camp seemed to be happy; the coaches, the players. There's a good spirit in the team right now. Winning this game puts us in the semi-finals but it turns out that it's against Agen _ a repeat of the semi-final last year in which they beat us in Narbonne.
Last Thursday I headed into Bordeaux, dropping Paula and the kids off at the airport for their trip home. I spent the afternoon looking around Bordeaux, a lovely city, and then had a free weekend.
Our coach, Guy Noves rested seven guys from the pack for last weekend's Bourgoin game as well as four or five of the backs as, basically, he sent a team of academy players on the eight-hour trip.
Perpignan, who haven't reached the semi-finals of the championship but have done enough to ensure they've qualified for the Heineken Cup next year, did the same against Grenoble and were also well beaten.
Unfortunately for our academy guys, up against a full-strength, first-choice Bourgoin team at home, it was one of those games when nothing went right and after being beaten 82-19 the eight-hour journey home must have seemed even longer. As a first experience of first division rugby it can't have been that great an experience. I was happy not to be one of those on that bus.
On Monday it was forgotten about and we were back to first-team training and focussing solely on the Heineken Cup final. The first thing we did was watch the Perpignan match when we played them here in the championship.
Actually, we trained on the Saturday morning, and it turned out that Jean-Baptiste Ellisalde, who made such an impact when he came on against Munster, pulled a hamstring and definitely won't play in this final.
I'm a single man for the rest of the season and so I decided to move in with David Gerard, who's also another single man. He's had a lot of female visitors since I've been here. He says they're all friends but there are only so many friends you can have!
We're all looking forward to this final. I have the bottle of Lourdes holy water, which is something they seemingly acquire for all finals. I went there and got a bottle myself a few weeks ago. I also intend bringing a few pieces of grass from our home ground to hand out to each of our players before the game, seeing as the French don't travel so well. Hopefully it will have some effect.
Being a Dublin boy playing in a European Cup final is going to be very special for me. Only internationals would come bigger than that.
