HEINEKEN CUP FINAL:Biarritz are playing down the importance of the scrum, but general opinion is it's the area which will probably decide the destination of the coveted Heineken Cup, writes GERRY THORNLEY

LA CLÉ de la mêlée fermée(the key is the scrums) the rugby bible Midi Olympique has declared with apparent relish. This may be the Heineken Cup, the crème de la crèmeof European rugby, but it's an all-French affair with a decidedly Gallic flavour. They do rather love a proper battle in the mêlée.

Those Irish rugby supporters who attend or tune in to today’s Heineken Cup final will take particular interest in the scrums given the damaged wreaked upon the Leinster and Munster set-pieces in the semi-finals.

Considering Leinster subsequently did something of a number on the Munster scrum last week in the Magners League semi-final, the formline in this area – and generally – would seem to augur well for Toulouse.

Except that the biter was bit last weekend when the Toulouse scrum was destroyed by Perpignan in their French Championship semi-final defeat, so much so that it accounted for four of the Catalans’ seven penalties in a 21-13 win.

Since Yannick Bru’s appointment as forwards’ coach last season, what had once been an Achilles’ heel in the otherwise potent Toulouse armoury had become a strength again, which made the events of last week all the more surprising.

“A lot of our success this season had been built upon the Toulouse scrum,” admitted Guy Noves earlier this week, “particularly against Leinster in the semi-finals of the Heineken Cup and against Castres in the barrage match, and we came to rely on it an awful lot. But the machine didn’t work against Perpignan last weekend and they relied on this advantage to win the game.”

“We conceded a lot of penalties in this area,” conceded lock Romain Millo-Chluski.

“It’s regrettable when you arrive in a semi-final and you give away 12 points as easily as this. The Catalans brought us back down to earth and it was a good warning for us. Against Biarritz we will come back strong. It will be a key area in the match. This week will give ideas to the Basque country.

“They’ve been very strong in the scrum in the European games and they destroyed Munster in this area. We are going to find a very aggressive scrum, very well prepared technically and with a very strong character.”

At one point last season Biarritz, three-time French champions since the turn of the millennium (2002, ’05 and ’06) were languishing in 13th place and flirting with relegation. Whereupon Serge Blanco (who has assumed much of a hands-on role since becoming club president last season) fired Jacque Delmas and appointed the former Biarritz hooker Jean-Michel Gonzalez, who also played loosehead for France, as coach.

Gonzalez may be a smart businessman but he is also old school, as is their former number eight Laurent Rodriguez, whom Blanco made team manager this season, and he restored some Basque machismo to the dressingroom.

One former team-mate of Gonzalez in his earlier Bayonne days – Gonzalez was one of the first to make the near sacrilegious switch to their Basque rivals – admits to having been a little frightened of the then hooker.

One of his favoured pre-match ploys was to have the backs lie face down in the dressingroom while the forwards ran over them – with their studs on.

Gonzalez places huge store on the emotional and mental importance of the scrum, not only to give quality possession to Dimitri Yachvilli but also to gain a psychological edge on the opposition.

He sees it as an important collective effort, a team within a team and demanding a committed eight-man effort. The revived emphasis on aggressive scrummaging and Biarritz gradually climbed the table to finish fifth, just outside the play-offs.

This season, they had runs of form when at full-strength but suffered horribly when Yachvili, Fabien Barcela and Damien Traille (along with Jerome Thion and Imanol Harinordoquy the spine of their team) were all injured in the same match and ruled out for a couple of months.

But they remain a good cup side with a clever brains trust on and off the field, for whom the scrums will be where they’ll seek to draw the lines in the sand, despite all their attempts to play this down.

“We are going to be coming up against the best set of forwards in Europe even though they had a bad day against Perpignan,” said Rodriguez.

Harinordoquy was surely lying when maintaining this week: “We haven’t put a huge emphasis on the scrum and I think Toulouse will have a different scrum than they had against Perpignan. For a start it won’t be the same players. We expect a reaction from Toulouse.

“It is one of their strong points and they will be very upset about what happened against Perpignan. In the forwards it is the most important thing. It is a real question of pride and they will have worked very hard on this area of their game.”

Likewise, Thion observed: “They are going to be back to their best team with players like Servat, Lecouls and Daan Human, who are excellent scrummagers.”

Much of this is true, and Toulouse have restored their first choice frontrow and five of their pack, while they at least have made little secret of their desire this week to rectify their problems against Perpignan.

“Yes, it’s going to be a huge battle in the scrums,” admits the restored Millo-Chluski freely.

“Everybody is going to have to be together because any team of Laurent Rodriguez relies on the performance of their pack.”

Nonetheless, Gonzalez maintained: “I wouldn’t be very worried for the Toulouse scrum. Their players are very competitive as are their coaches.”

Asked if Biarritz had focused on this area of today’s final in the build-up, the coach smiled a little and said: “No more than usual.”

For Gonzalez and Biarritz especially, la clé est la mêlée, because if they don't gain a discernible edge hear, it's hard not to see Toulouse having the edge elsewhere.