Rugby: Champions Cup or Top 14? “We both want to win as much as the other,” warns Antoine Dupont

European Cup or Top 14? “We both want to win as much as the other,” warned international scrum-half Antoine Dupont before hosting the English club Exeter on Sunday (4 p.m.) in the quarter-final of the Champions Cup. “We know the difficulties to win both, it's different, but from there to choose it's complicated” estimates the one who will be captain of Stade Toulousain on Sunday against Exeter.

“We have to juggle both competitions and we want to lift one as much as the other” he added, before confiding with a smile that “the shield is heavier” and that “it 'is less obvious to raise'. “This European Cup arrived at the right time in our season: it brought us freshness, enthusiasm, and this allowed the whole group to regain energy” also confided the best passer of this competition (8).

“We were in a slightly more complicated period in the championship with average content and we found better sensations” judges the new international at 7. “It’s a team which has a real identity. When they are in your camp they are very difficult to prevent from scoring. We will have to compete on the physical dimension,” Dupont then confided about his team’s future opponent.

Beaten by Exeter in the semi-final of the Champions Cup in September 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, Dupont has “bad memories” but also remembers that Stade Toulousain “learned from that match to come back and win the season next".