Nobody knows the Heineken Cup better than Guy Noves, the Toulouse coach who led his team to victory in the inaugural final in 1996. The French side have the distinction of being the only club to have played in every season of the Heineken Cup - with Noves at the helm. Saturday's Pool 5 fixture against Edinburgh at Meadowbank will be their 48th game in the tournament, a total matched only by Munster. Toulouse's only previous encounter with Scottish opposition came in the pool stages of the 1998/99 competition when they beat the then Edinburgh Reivers side 29-25 away and 23-11 at home.
"We are very aware that Edinburgh Rugby are one of the best teams on the European scene at the moment," said Noves.
"Through bringing the best Scottish players back into their squad, Edinburgh have constructed a very complete team with an excellent set-piece and a powerful, attacking back line.
"Edinburgh dominated the Pool rounds of the Celtic League and we are conscious that it is going to be an extremely difficult place to go on Saturday.
"The fact that Edinburgh lost their Celtic League quarter-final last weekend will make it an even tougher task for us. A team like Edinburgh will not want to lose twice in a row so it's going to be a question of working as hard as possible to limit the damage as much as possible.
"Edinburgh were in control for the most of last Saturday's match. They caused problems to Cardiff's scrum and were somewhat unlucky that Cardiff came back into the game so successfully to win at the end.
"They took their foot off the pedal a little in that game but they won't make the same mistake against us, that's for sure.
"These matches will be a very good test of our team at the moment. Our aim is to come out on top at the end of the two matches, but it would be difficult to win them both."
Toulouse suffered a blow last weekend when prop Patrice Collazo sustained a shoulder injury during their 31-16 defeat of Narbonne. The former Gloucester front row man will undergo an operation this week and is likely to be out of action for three months. He joins fellow prop Dragos Dima on the injury list - the Romanian international prop is suffering from a slipped disc and will sit out both games.
Noves added: "There are also doubts for Saturday's game over Cédric Heymans, Nicolas Jeanjean and Yannick Jauzion. Trevor Brennan also took a knock to his neck during last Saturday's game and left the ground wearing a collar.
