Toulouse beat Exeter 43-40 with 14 men for 64 minutes.
Exeter won those 64 minutes 33-31. With the last play they chose the posts and a draw, and Henry Slade pulled the kick wide. How a side outscores a team a man down and still loses comes down to who Toulouse had left.
Toulouse beat Exeter Chiefs 43-40 in Champions Cup Pool 2 on Sunday 18 October 2026 at the Stadium de Toulouse, after referee Hollie Davidson sent off loosehead Rodrigue Neti in the 16th minute with the hosts 12-7 ahead.
Key facts
- Score: Toulouse 43-40 Exeter Chiefs, seven tries to six
- Red card: Rodrigue Neti (Toulouse), 16 minutes, shoulder to the head of Ross Vintcent
- Yellow cards: Sam Harris and Ben Hammersley (Exeter), Teddy Thomas (Toulouse)
- Hat-trick: Zack Wimbush (Exeter)
- Scoring after the red card: Exeter 33, Toulouse 31
- Match points: Toulouse 4, Exeter 1 (losing bonus)
Twelve points in four minutes against 13
Zack Wimbush, on the wing because Immanuel Feyi-Waboso was injured, scored his second from the lineout that followed Neti’s card. Toulouse answered through Joshua Brennan and Teddy Thomas to lead 24-14.
Thomas then slapped down a pass and went to the bin for a deliberate knock-on at 36 minutes. Two men up, Exeter scored twice before the break: Jack Yeandle off a maul, then Stephen Varney on a 60-metre run from a ruck. Half-time was 26-24 to the visitors.
A scrum-half at 10 and no centres left
Santiago Chocobares failed a head-injury assessment early in the second half. His replacement, Tommaso Menoncello, went off soon after, with a wrist injury according to Planet Rugby and a shoulder problem according to Rugbyrama.
That put Antoine Dupont at fly-half. Five first-choice names were already absent before kick-off: Jack Willis, Emmanuel Meafou, Thibaud Flament, Julien Marchand and Thomas Ramos.
Exeter captain Dafydd Jenkins charged down a Dupont kick at 48 minutes and Will Butt scored. Toulouse were 33-24 down, a man short, with 32 minutes left.
Where 14 men found 19 points
Matias Remue, the Belgium international at full-back, scored at 54 minutes after Thomas broke down the right. Romain Ntamack finished a counter from deep three minutes later, and Toulouse led 38-33.
Wimbush completed his hat-trick off a lineout drive at 63 minutes: 40-38 to Exeter. Then replacement Ben Hammersley was sin-binned for head contact on Kalvin Gourgues, and Remue stepped Slade for the winner at 68.
Rugbyrama counted three head contacts on Gourgues in that single passage. One card came out of it.
The case that Toulouse made it hard for themselves
Read another way, this should never have been a three-point game. Toulouse gave away only four penalties all afternoon, by Rugbyrama’s count, and Romain Ntamack converted three of six attempts.
They also had five lineouts inside the Exeter 22 after the winning try and did not close it out. Kane James, off the Exeter bench, won a maul turnover on his own five-metre line instead.
The last scrum went through Toulouse’s replacement front row for a penalty about 38 metres out. Slade had landed five conversions from six. This one drifted wide.
What Neti’s red costs France
Neti now faces a disciplinary hearing. Rugbyrama reports that a ban of three matches or more would rule him out of the start of France’s November series, which opens against Fiji on Saturday 7 November.
That is a selection problem for Fabien Galthié as much as for Ugo Mola, the Toulouse head coach. No hearing date or sanction had been published by Sunday evening.
What happens next
Pool 2 also holds La Rochelle, the Lions, Saracens and Connacht, who beat Saracens in their opener. The top three in each pool go straight through to the round of 16, and the pool stage resumes in December. Toulouse’s fixtures end the pool against Saracens on Sunday 17 January.
Exeter’s point could matter more than it looked at full-time. Their pack had just driven through the Toulouse scrum. Should they have kicked to the corner for the win?
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