Top 14
Toulon 'out to win everything'
ESPN Staff
August 16, 2013
Toulon president Mourad Boudjellal and coach Bernard Laporte celebrate with the Heineken Cup last season
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Toulon coach Bernard Laporte insists his side are not prioritising the Top 14 title this season having been beaten in the last two title-deciders - they want to win everything. Laporte's star-studded team narrowly missed out on a Heineken Cup-Top 14 double last season with Castres upsetting them in the league finale after they had captured the European crown with victory over French rivals Clermont Auvergne. The defeat to Castres followed an equally agonising loss to Toulouse the season before but Laporte is adamant those back-to-back defeats are not clouding their vision this term. "The Bouclier de Brennus is not our prime objective because our priority is to win everything," the former France coach told AFP on the eve of the new season. "I would sign straight away for another European Cup title but we want to win the Top 14 as well." Talking to the Sud Ouest newspaper, Laporte said: "What was achieved last year was good but we will not spend our time looking back. That is what I told the players at our training camp in Tignes. What is important to the end is the consistency of performance." "...With me, when it's over, it's over. As with women." And Laporte, whose side will kick off their new campaign against Montpellier on Friday night, is confident his charges remain hungry for success. "Our goal is to write a new page in the history of this club but if the motivation of those who must make the team is not at the right level, it will be complicated. But I have little doubt about their state of mind." © ESPN Sports Media Ltd
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