Toulouse Tour 2024 - Day 2

After the late night, lads were slow to emerge for breakfast. The roll-call was taken at 9.30am as we boarded the bus to visit "Cite de l'éspace" - Toulouse has long been a centre of aeronautical and space engineering, and for people - like me - who'd grown up with the Apollo program and the Moon landings - this was something to look forward to.

On arrival at "Cité de l'éspace" - we received the tragic news that Margaret Murphy's father had passed away. She left us immediately to return to Ireland with Donncha. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

We left the Cité de l'éspace after lunch to head to our afternoon event - our U14s would be playing in a blitz with our host Montaudran and Stade Toulousain.

Having arrived at Ramonville, we decorated the stand to our preference....

The pre-game formalities were observed with the playing of Amhrann na bhFiann and Ireland's Call as well 'La Marseillaise'

The games themselves showed a difference in playing style - wth Montaudran and Stade opting to go wide at every opportunity compared to our more structured approach looking to suck in defenders first.

As the sunny afternoon turned into a cool evening with a cold wind from the Pyrenees - we quickly understood how playing styles might differ when you've a hard, dry pitch underfoot

For their game against Stade Toulousain, Montaudran took a loan of Gearóid and Shane.

Afterwards, Montaudran presented everyone a t-shirt.

Back at Cartoucherie, we headed off to the food hall which offered just about every type of cuisine you could imagine - anyone familar with the Marina Market on the route to Pairc uí Chaoimh will
want to make this a stop if you ever get to a Munster match in Toulouse. We had so many requests for burgers that the stall holder gave Ger a discount for bringing in so much business.

The evening ended by rounding up the stragglers and with the roll call for phones - ahead lay our 2nd full day in Toulouse.