How on earth do you stop this Toulouse tap-kick move?

Imagine 6’8, 145kg Toulouse lock Emmanuel Meafou coming at you at speed five metres from your own try line and not having time to prepare.

This is a delicious move from Toulouse and practically impossible to stop – at least Racing 92 didn’t have a clue how to stop it on the weekend in the Top 14, with the giant Australian second row crashing over in spectacular fashion.

In fact it is a variation of a move called the Jolimont, according to RugbyRama.
“Yes, this combination is a variant of the Jolimont. I had created it at Sport-Etudes which bore this name and I transferred it to Stade Toulousain The basis was the scrum half who plays the penalty for himself with a small kick and his teammates around him, had to split into two blocks with the idea of creating uncertainty among the players. defenders.”

In this version there is a decoy at the start of the move, so that Dupont, instead of taking and passing it to the one of two carriers, instead decoys to the side, only the let the first player choose which carrier to hit.

“Uncertainty also existed in our team. No one knew who was going to take the ball, it was the scrum-half who chose. as flat as possible. The opposing defense couldn’t go up until the ball was played.”

One former player – Thierry Maset – noted: “Yes, I saw this great action finished by Emmanuel Meafou. I was pleased to see that we were playing these penalties tactically. I thought it was a good assumption of responsibility. In our time, our Meafou , it was often Claude Portolan”.

Feels like the sort of move the BaaBaas would dream up

Helps when Dupont can draw away four defenders on his own

And Meafou with a running start at that range would be tough to stop without the misdirection

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— Paul Eddison (@pauleddison) September 25, 2022