IF YOU have seen a better match than Gloucester versus Toulouse you are one of a rare breed, because you have seen two of the best games ever.

The stunning victory over the European aristocrats of Heineken Cup encounters produced 80 minutes of relentless excitement, pace, wonderful tries, immense fitness levels and, a Cherry and White win.

Before the action started there were murmurs along the lines of, 'This is ridiculous, who do Sky think they are? What happened to Saturday at 3pm? etc etc,' but by the end of it the crowd of 13,077 would have voted unanimously for a midnight start in future if the match were as epic as this.

There was a real sense of an amphitheatre with the black sky enclosing the floodlit pitch.

On a black night like that one, there is only one place for the crowd's attention – the Kingsholm turf with 30 warriors doing battle.

And 'battle' seemed the key word when Nick Wood was yellow-carded for inappropriate use of the boot in the first minute.

The referee seemed unworried at the lineout until the touch judge waved his flag.

I was on the other side of the pitch and heard the reports of events via one of the officials with earphones (one in a cast of hundreds), but my take on the incident was simple and pragmatic: not one French player went for the retaliation card.

French teams simply don't take a bit of shoe without gangland recriminations, so my money was on the belief that not very much had happened.

But off went Wood, with the remaining 15 forwards looking slightly bemused.

If that wasn't enough to get the fans going, the third minute saw an even more surreal incident when Toulouse winger Motanavou found himself under a bomb close to his own line.

The next few seconds will haunt him forever as the events panned out something like – high ball, try to get under it, toilet paper please, fumble, more paper and panic, take ball back over goal line, paper running out, don't touch down to give five-metre scrum to Gloucester which any person in charge of his faculties would do, realise all paper has been used, put in inept kick which is charged down, Gloucester try.

There were superb tries to counter the 14's moment of madness and Dusatoir scored a memorable one on an evening that can only be described in superlatives. Gloucester were up against a side who were clearly after the early bonus point for four tries, but the home side clicked, countered everything that was thrown at them and will be well pleased with what they achieved.

A narrow loss would have been a big result, but a 34- 24 win blasted this one into the stratosphere.

Sadly, Gloucester were out of the running before the game started, but they looked like a different team from the one that is capable of losing to Worcester and Newcastle.

They seem to require the adrenalin surge of playing against seemingly impossible odds to produce their best.

But the best sides treat lesser outfits with equal measures of respect and contempt – and swat them away.

You can hardly ask opponents to wear the Toulouse shirts and speak French for 80 minutes, so there is a vital job to be done on the team's self-belief and attitude when they come to what might seem a mundane, run-of-the-mill game.

My own man of the match was Luke Narraway. His was as near a complete eight's performance as you will see.

That does not attempt to take anything away from Jonny May's award, it is just that perverse pensioners see things differently from others.

But down to the serious business of Nick Wood. What has the man done to merit not getting into the full England squad?

I have felt for some time that he needs a make-over to look a bit scruffier, more lived in.

He is consistently as good (if not better) than any other English-qualified loosehead prop at scrum time, he tackles at an incredible rate, he is as fit as a butcher's dog, carries well and has good hands – but there is clearly something missing.

My coaching advice is for him to start smoking roll-your-owns, grow designer stubble, spit, get a punk hairstyle in bright pink and don a piratical headband. You have to do some odd things these days to get into the England team, so get on with it, Nick.