Precedent would suggest that La Rochelle, as first-timers in this competition, will not win the Champions Cup but, swept away on delirium on the Atlantic coast, it is difficult not to proclaim them contenders. Their first three games among Europe’s elite have yielded a maximum 15 points. Wasps are about as far from first-timers as can be imagined – double champions, no less – but they were comprehensively dismantled, notwithstanding the five tries they managed to score themselves.
La Rochelle scored six, which may make this sound closer than the 20-point margin of victory suggests, but that margin was more than fair – perhaps even a little flattering to Wasps. They at least emerge from this sobering experience with a bonus point, courtesy of three tries in the final 20 minutes. They will be under no illusion that it represents anything other than a steal.
If Exeter represent upward mobility in English rugby, La Rochelle are the French equivalent. They are relatively new to the Top 14, which they top, as they did at the end of the regular season just gone, and their raucous stadium of theirs is already a fortress to compare to France’s most formidable.
Like Exeter, they have achieved without recourse to more than the odd superstar. Victor Vito might qualify as such, but otherwise La Rochelle appear to have adopted a responsible approach to recruitment. Levani Botia, the Fijian centre they have converted to a flanker, shone with two tries and a performance of fearsome athleticism, and the team were steered expertly by two stalwarts of the French club game, Brock James and the superb Alexi Bales. Youthful homegrown talent, meanwhile, is represented by Pierre Bougarit, the powerful hooker, and Thomas Jolmes, no less mighty a lock.
Wasps have struggled for form this season, after their run to the final of the Premiership last term, and they were quick to subside into uncertainty in the face of the assault to their senses on and off the field, albeit pulling off the odd flash of genius. If this was not quite a humiliation such as those endured by Northampton and Leicester over the weekend, it was a defeat to leave them on the brink of ejection from the tournament.
From the off La Rochelle came at them, despite the heavy conditions. Bougarit put a foot on the touchline as he dotted down in the third minute. Thomas Young was sent to the sin-bin in the heat of it all, and La Rochelle went ahead from the penalty. But it was Wasps who scored the first try – and a beauty it was too that Rob Miller, in for the ill Willie le Roux, worked into the corner straight from a scrum.
Alas, hopes of a smart victory off the ropes were undone by calamitous errors in the next few minutes. Danny Cipriani was charged down by Pierre Aguillon for La Rochelle’s first, straight from the restart, before Wasps flapped their own lineout into the arms of the rampaging Bougarit, who drove over a couple of phases later. Young returned from the sin-bin to score another smart Wasps try, but La Rochelle responded with 13 points in the second quarter to take a 30-12 lead into the interval, Botia running through Miller for his first after relentless pressure from the home side.
Juan de Jongh had seen yellow at the end of the first for a slap-down, and La Rochelle had their bonus point by the time he returned, Bales and Vito going blind to release Vincent Rattez for the first of his two tries. The rain of the previous 24 hours had returned now, but the 35-12 scoreline set us up for the unreal ding-dong of the five-try final quarter, during which Wasps managed to burgle that bonus point.
Elliot Daly finished in the corner on the hour, after Young’s flick-on, to spark hopes of that point, but Rattez’s second, a brilliant sweeping move, put paid to any lingering hopes of more than that. Joe Simpson eventually claimed the fourth try in typically quicksilver style, before Will Stuart was driven over with five minutes to go. A second bonus point briefly glimmered as further reward, but Botia slammed the door shut on that with another powerful run to the posts. Emphatic, from both he and his team, as is their maximum haul from three. Europe has some new contenders, indeed.
La Rochelle Murimurivalu; Sinzelle, Doumayrou, Aguillon (Ranger, 52), Rattez (Goillot, 65); James (Lamb, 55), Bales; Priso, Bourgarit (Forbes, 62), Atonio (Boughanmi, 62), Eaton (capt), Jolmes (Sazy, 62), Kieft (Gourdon, 55), Botia, Vito.
Tries Aguillon, Bougarit, Botia2, Rattez 2. Cons James 3, Lamb 2. Pens James 3.
Wasps Miller; Wade (Watson 72), De Jongh (Lovobalavu, 65), Gopperth, Daly; Cipriani, Robson (Simpson, 62); McIntyre (Harris, 71), Johnson (Cruse, 57), Moore (Stuart, 71), Launchbury (capt), Gaskell (Myall, 57), Haskell (Willis, 57), Young, Carr.
Sin-bin Young 7, Le Roux 37.
Tries Miller, Young, Daly, Simpson, Stuart. Cons Gopperth 2
Referee J Lacey (Ire). Attendance 16,033.
