Florian Fritz on the charge for Toulouse © Getty Images

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Players/Officials: Michael Cheika | Luke McAlister | Yannick Nyanga Kabasele

Tournaments/Tours: Top 14 Orange

Teams: France

Toulouse Captain Yannick Nyanga has paid tribute to new team mate Luke McAllister after the former All Black steered the French Champions to a 41-36 win over Racing Metro on Saturday.

McAllister contributed 21 points to the win at Le Stadium to cap an impressive home debut for les Toulousains, and Nyanga is convinced that the Kiwi will become the new fans favourite to replace the departed Byron Kelleher.

"Luke? He's a world class player," Nyanga told La Depeche du Midi. "At Stade, we've always had good fly-halves. We were very good there [against Racing Metro]. "He launches our game-plan perfectly and is always moving us forward. It's always easy to play with a 10 like that."

Biarritz Manager Laurent Rodriguez has told supporters that they'll have to be patient following their 18-23 home defeat to Castres.

The Basque side find themselves in the relegation zone after a winless start to the season which Rodriguez put down to a variety of reasons. "The problem is that we have a new system of play set up by Patrice Lagisquet, Serge Milhas and Jack Isaac and these things take time," Rodriguez told Sudouest.

"Maybe we'll need more time than we previously thought because a lot of guys that we're playing are from the academy.

"Another problem is that we're limited by the salary cap. Unfortunately we had the experience of losing Matt Dunning, who because of medical reasons, couldn't play for us. And we've been forced to play Sylvain Marconnet because Buckle has been feeling all the difficulties in the world playing at tighthead."

Another manager already feeling the pressure is Michael Cheika, who saw his Stade Francais side draw 19-19 with Montpellier at Stade Charlety.

The former Leinster supremo told Midi Olympique: "Against Bordeaux the substitutions tipped the balance of the match in our favour. Against Montpellier it didn't really work. Although we were lucky not to lose, we could have taken the win by managing certain situations better."