To the long list of qualities of the great Toulouse must now be added sheer, almost animal courage. They were so savaged by injury before and during this wonderfully fluid and hair-raising exciting Heineken Cup semi-final that they ended with a flanker on the wing and next man on in the event of another injury was their bus driver.

Long before the end both teams had run themselves almost to a standstill of exhaustion, but London Irish, whose approach was infectiously vibrant all day, came steaming at Toulouse in desperation for the equalising try, with Topsy Ojo, who ran brilliantly all day searching urgently for a space. He never found one. The Toulouse resistance remained strong and Toulouse are through to the final. Their chances now depend on the efforts of their medical staff in the next month.

To be perfectly fair, the match was still in the balance at the end only because Toulouse let in two horrendous tries through simple mis-tackles, something that would have drawn a ferocious telling off from the coach in a mini-rugby match. This is not to say that London Irish did not deserve the tries for their wondrous optimism, but if Toulouse had indeed been overhauled, they would have kicked themselves and their miscreant defenders all the way back home to France.

London Irish have absolutely nothing with which to reproach themselves. They are only below mid-table in the Guinness Premiership, and their much-vaunted line-out was bettered by that of Toulouse. Furthermore, the Irish were simply too ambitious, really should have kicked to the corners occasionally to give their line-out at least a chance. But how disarming to see the likes of Ojo and Sailosi Tagicakibau running from deep with such verve. You sense that the Irish are half way to becoming a formidable team and that the difficult half may have already have been achieved.

It was also instructive to see the shape of the game, after the bright excellence we saw on the television coverage of the Bath-Sale championship semi-final. We had been lectured yesterday morning by the IRB that the game needs improving and that it has become almost impossible to referee, but here we have two more splendid matches to add to this most vivid of seasons and at Twickenham, referee Alan Lewis appeared to find the game rather less than impossible, in fact he refereed extremely well and looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

The best moment for London Irish in the first half was a try that they scored clean out of reverse gear in the 21st minute. Quite a number of their attacks had floundered because of over-optimism and as they off-loaded two colleagues in inferior positions, and as they lost ground on every off load, this particular move at one time looked likely to end in the stand behind their own line.

But help was at hand. Tagicakibau emerged to provide forward momentum and then the outstanding Ojo burst into the move from the opposite wing, unleashed a devastating finishing burst through some admittedly weak tackles, and ran on to score. Both teams had kicked a penalty each before this and so Hewat’s conversion made it a handy 10-3 in the middle of the half.

However, the rest of the half belonged to France. Toulouse began to play, orchestrated at half back. They could easily have scored had they converted any one of four chances as the half wore on but they did strike with a deadly double blow after 34 and 38 minutes.

The first try came after three devastatingly crisp phases of play with both Elissalde and Jauzion conjuring up the middle and it ended with Elissalde and Medard running straight lines to make space for Ahotaeiloa to score in the corner.

Toulouse kept on coming. They forced an attacking lineout which was won by Nyanga, executed the most powerful and well-organised driving maul and eventually William Servat burst away to score. The conversion from Ellisalde made it 15-10 to Toulouse at half-time and the favourites had re-asserted themselves.

However, after 43 minutes we had the second visitation of the Toulouse defensive horror show. The electric Tagicakibau was hounded by French defenders in a tight corner, but he accelerated straight through feeble tackles by Heymans and Medard and ran on to score. Helpfully for the Toulouse coach, trying to spot the men to shoot in training next week, Heymans and Medard lay on the floor in their Tagicakibau’s wake to make identification easier.

However, Toulouse re-established momentum. Elissalde kicked two excellent penalties after 48 and 57 minutes, and one more score for Toulouse at that point would have buried the match as a contest.

However, that score never came. Toulouse began to drop the pace. They had to bring on the injured Thierry Dusautoir as replacement. The backs finally dipped below the quorum altogether, and there was just a chance for the Irish. Indeed, there was more than just a chance when Shane Geraghty rang straight through Dusautoir and made a long run deep into the Toulouse 22 and Toulouse had to defend with desperation. But in the end, with two heroic fighting teams, swishing blows at each other, but without the old power London Irish were held out, with a final desperate series of attacks, doomed eventually to failure.

It was a match worthy of a semi-final and Toulouse went home to celebrate, and to recuperate.

London Irish: P Hewat; T Ojo, P Richards, S Mapusua, S Tagicakibau; S Geraghty, P Hodgson; D Murphy (T Lea’aetoa 41min), D Paice, F Rautenbach, N Kennedy, B Casey (capt), D Danaher, S Armitage, P Murphy.

Toulouse: C Heymans; M Medard, M Ahotaeiloa, Y Jauzion, Y Donguy; J-B Elissalde, B Kelleher; D Human, W Servat, S Perugini (O Hasan 68min), F Pelous (capt) (R Millo-Chluski 68min), P Albacete, J Bouilhou (G Lamboley 73min), Y Nyanga (T Dusatoir 60min), S Sowerby.