Guy Noves believes that his timing was never more crucial than when he was hit by a car just over two weeks ago while cycling in Toulouse. It was a heavy Mercedes, and the impact had the effect of a kind of reverse catapult, which sent Noves clean through the windscreen.

He believes that had the impact come a second earlier or later, he would have caught the edge of the windscreen mountings and caused himself the most serious damage. As it was, he was knocked out and airlifted to hospital. It will therefore come as a surprise to those who remember him as a rather ephemeral French wing in the latter half of the 1970s to learn that within 48 hours of the impact, he was back in his traditional position, prowling the touchline as Toulouse thrashed Cardiff Blues in the quarter-final of the Heineken Cup, giving what was in many periods of the game a brilliant demonstration of this gigantic club at its best.

Noves traditionally cuts a remarkable figure on the touchline, whether or not he has just bounced back from an accident that would have laid low many other people. He is a prowler, a gesticulator, a bawler. His face can contort in fury and frustration.

You inquire of close friends as to whether this is the real Noves, half expecting them to tell you that off the field he is as meek as a lamb, but no, the prowler is the true Guy.

He has been coach of Toulouse for a staggering 15 years, and will still be at the helm and still prowling at Twickenham on Saturday, when the French aristocrats come to play London Irish in the semi-final. In a week when England’s new coach is new to the post and to the profession, Noves can hardly provide a bigger contrast. He has done the lot; in those 15 years he has won seven French league titles in a ferociously competitive environment. He has won the French Cup twice, and he has won the Heineken Cup three times.

As a measure of his volatility, the third of these triumphs, when Toulouse beat Stade Français at Murrayfield three years ago, was marred when he was arrested and frog-marched out of the stadium just after the final whistle.

He had been attempting to climb the fences to greet his family and to bring his son onto the field to join in the celebration. Eyewitnesses claim that the over-zealousness of jobsworth stewards and heavy-handed policemen were at least partially responsible for the unedifying spectacle.

“I am not stressed when I am on the touchline,” he says. “I know a lot of people think that I am. Of course, coaches get stressed before the game, but once the whistle blows

I am totally concentrating and totally focused. If I notice something, whether it be a small tactical change or a decision that we can exploit, it can be the difference between winning and losing.”

Noves and his team have emerged from a rather barren spell, and it is unthinkable in a wonderfully fervent and dedicated rugby city that the old French giant can ever go long without winning big trophies. We think that Leicester and Gloucester and Northampton are big institutions, but they are dwarfed by the scope and size and ambition of Toulouse. Hence the pressure for glory.

It is partly their sheer glamour and even exoticism that helps them in the Heineken Cup. A few French clubs are notable non-performers in the tournament, preferring to excel in the bread-and-butter of the French championship — take Bourgoin, who are always dangerous in the domestic competition and invariably feeble in the Heineken Cup. Noves sees the extra element in the pan-European competition. “It is indispensable to us. Toulouse has won the French championship many times, and our sponsors and supporters wanted us to show ourselves more on the international stage.”

With a team built around a heavy-duty pack and defence, with Byron Kelleher, the All Black, adding a rumbustious element at scrum-half, and with a raft of deadly finishers behind, they are a team of all the talents. One of their stellar names, Vincent Clerc, will be missing on Saturday after tearing cruciate knee ligaments in yesterday’s 23-11 defeat by Clermont, an injury that will sideline him for nine months. Yet it is still extremely difficult to believe that London Irish can possibly overcome them.

It is now more than 20 years since Noves retired from playing, but he is still as fit as the fittest whippet, lean and bursting with energy. Of his longevity, he is definitive.

“When you are a rugby coach and you are passionate about the job, it keeps you going. It would be like asking a surgeon how he keeps going after hundreds of operations. I am now at the stage where I know my job, and as long as I can choose my coaches and the way I do the job, I will never get tired of it.”

Kelleher has overcome his culture shock to become a key figure in the team, and upholds the Toulouse experience as a factor in his battle to overcome the dire sporting disappointment of New Zealand’s demise in the World Cup. “The people of Toulouse live and breathe rugby. The blood running through their veins is rugby. The smell in the air is rugby.”

He also identifies the key difference between the seasons in the two hemispheres. “Southern hemisphere rugby is a hundred-metre sprint, whereas northern hemisphere rugby, especially in France, is a marathon. The skill levels and execution have been poor in the Super 14 this season. Quite clearly, northern hemisphere teams have been playing much better rugby.”

Toulouse last played at Twickenham in the final of the Heineken Cup in 2004, when they went down in an epic game against Wasps, and probably played some of the most brilliant rugby ever seen in a losing cause. Noves can now reflect that this was among his finest hours as a coach. Whether or not his demeanour was that of a man enjoying himself at the time is open to the most serious doubt. There is no question, however, that even after 15 years, the fire still burns, and one of sport’s most glamorous institutions is being powered onwards.

TV match

London Irish v Toulouse

Saturday, Sky Sports 2, 2.30pm, kick-off 3pm