Alternatively, it’s none of the above. Both Bordeaux and Toulouse have hit bumps on the road to the Matmut Atlantique. And, fair — or, rather, unfair — warning: Sunday’s stormy weather forecast is unconducive to both sides’ first-choice high-pace, fling-it rugby. Last Saturday, La Rochelle defended Bordeaux off the ball and out of the game at Stade Chaban Delmas. It definitely wasn’t pretty rugby. Whether it was clever is debatable. But it was effective — which is easily taken for clever in the right light. Toulouse boss Ugo Mola, no doubt, watched with interest. Bordeaux’s Yannick Bru admitted to Midi Olympique this week that the result, “was clearly a setback, a drop in vigilance, a drop in all our performance standards”. But he insisted it was nothing more than a blip — an important lesson. “We quickly debriefed,” he said, “because you can watch it over and over again, we will always lose — and it wasn’t a priority.” There’s no denying, though, this was a badly timed defeat. Bordeaux selected as close to their first-choice squad as injuries and rest periods would allow. The expectation, clearly, was to bring a four-match winning streak, with all the confidence that adds, into this weekend. Instead, they were a long way second best at home against a side that had, only the previous weekend, finally broken a 105-day winless run. That hurts. Doubly so, for a side competing on two fronts at the start of the business end of the season. Worse, it means they remain vulnerable to a late Top 14 charge from third-placed Toulon — who welcome both the top two sides to Stade Mayol in the closing weeks of the regular season. Meanwhile, the limits of Toulouse’s much-vaunted squad depth are being stress-tested. Losing Antoine Dupont to an ACL injury during the Six Nations seemed to have barely slowed them. They have won five of their six matches in all competitions since he was helped off the Aviva Stadium pitch in early March. Their only defeat? At Bordeaux. Paul Graou — a scrum-half too good to wear the term ‘understudy’, for all that’s exactly what he joined Toulouse knowing he would be — and Japan international Naoto Saito have done their jobs admirably, as they should, after the club passed on the idea of seeking a medical joker to cover Dupont’s extended absence. But Saito suffered an ankle injury in the win over Stade Francais a fortnight ago. Two weeks previously, Italian international Ange Capuozzo — slated as additional cover at nine — also injured his ankle in the Champions Cup round-of-16 win over Sale. On Saturday, Toulouse put 52 points on Castres at Stadium Toulouse, with a 19-year-old at nine on his second senior start. He scored his first senior try before ceding his place to an 18-year-old replacement making his big boy debut off the bench. Both of them are, already, France under-U20 internationals. A Champions Cup semi-final, however, is far from what was already close to a no-consequences late-season domestic clash — notwithstanding that it was a derby — for the Top 14 leaders and Champions Cup holders. Early this week, reports suggested Saito and Capuozzo were in line to return for tomorrow’s Sunday’s semi-final trip. That was the good news, after Graou had been kept as far away from the pitch as propriety would allow last weekend. But that was drowned out by waves of bad from the Toulouse camp. Blair Kinghorn has been sidelined until the end of May at the earliest with a knee injury in last Saturday’s victory. The club confirmed on Wednesday that hooker Peato Mauvaka is out for several months with a knee injury. Then, on Thursday, reports broke that fullback and goalkicker Thomas Ramos, could miss the last-four match because of a calf strain. Sunday’s semi-final is the first match of the rest of the season for the top two in French rugby’s top flight. It might be time to set aside hopes of a bravura, springtime showpiece. Given the expected conditions in Bordeaux and the understandable stakes, only one thing matters.