Winning big knockout games in France takes a lot of doing and two English triumphs in successive days really would have been something special. Even when Exeter led 19-17 early in the second half there was still a sense a star-studded Toulouse side would prove too strong and so it proved as the hosts booked their place in the Champions Cup semi-finals for the sixth straight year.
When they really put the pedal to the metal there are few teams anywhere who can live with Antoine Dupont and co and Exeter, initially feisty and purposeful, were eventually swept away by an irresistible crimson tide, conceding 28 points in just over 11 minutes in a sobering third quarter. Even Harlequins, so heroic in Bordeaux on Saturday, will have their work seriously cut out in this boiling cauldron in the last four.
