For a tantalising few minutes, Wasps threatened to pull off a miraculous comeback, the sort of thing that was beyond Northampton the day before. But in the end this third instalment of the Anglo-French weekend went the way of the first – a victory for French power.
Toulon march on along the Riviera to Marseille to face Leinster in the semi-final at the Stade Vélodrome, where they over-powered Munster at the same stage last year on their way to a second consecutive European title. Win a third and they will make history.
It’s a daunting task that awaits the Irish but they will note with interest how Wasps stayed in the contest until the last five minutes, how they survived a fearsome pummelling, how they scored two quicksilver tries in the second half. The second of Will Helu’s double, with seven minutes to go, brought the visitors to within a converted try of an unlikely comeback, but it showed, if nothing else, that Toulon can lose concentration. And that they are vulnerable to the sort of lightning attacks out wide that Wasps specialise in, even without Christian Wade.
Both their tries featured the quick feet and soft hands of Elliot Daly, who had a fine game. So too Joe Simpson who found space to exploit from scrum-half and then later down the left wing, where he finished the game. It was Simpson’s break off turnover ball from the Wasps 22 that paved the way for Helu’s second, notwithstanding Ali Williams’s taking out of Daly in support. Had Wasps not scored anyway a few phases later, Williams would surely have seen yellow for it. As it was, it stuck in the craw that it was the same player who scored the try with three minutes remaining that put paid to any ideas of a dramatic comeback.
“That was really disappointing,” said Dai Young, Wasps’ director of rugby, “but I don’t want it to sound like sour grapes, because I think they probably had a bit too much for us. If we’d had a penalty try then and a yellow card, it would have given us more time to mount a real challenge. We were hugely frustrated by that. It was a blatant yellow card.”
Wasps were under the cosh physically from the off. Not at the set piece, where they enjoyed a productive afternoon, particularly at the lineout, but certainly in the collisions. This was not a dissimilar contest from that semi-final in Marseille last season, in which Munster scored the only try through fleetness of foot but were otherwise pulverised around the field, the boot of Jonny Wilkinson doing the rest.
For Wilkinson here read Fréddie Michalak. The Frenchman is, or at least has been, a very different proposition to his Anglo-Saxon nemesis, but here the trickery and flair was balanced by unerring accuracy that it’s tempting to imagine his having learnt since he joined Wilkinson in Toulon. His six penalties and two conversions from all angles provided the bedrock of this victory.
Toulon do not play with quite the elan of Clermont but there’s no let-up on the power front. Just when you think that one powerful stocky guy has been tackled, along comes another, then it’s spinned out to a third, then back inside to a tall powerful one, before a jinking powerful one goes for a speculative canter through the forwards, bouncing off men through whom there is meant to be no passage. Whatever it is they do, Toulon do it with power.
They kicked an early penalty to the corner, and when Wasps stopped the initial surge Toulon flung it wide to Mathieu Bastareaud who crashed over. An early try had set the template. Stop the forwards if you can, but the backs are scarcely less powerful.
That was Toulon’s only try of the half, but they showed admirable patience in their score-building. Michalak was called up again and again, even though many might have gone for the corner once or twice. By half-time the ledger read 22-6 in their favour.
Toulon drifted in the second half, despite some raids of their own down the left, Delon Armitage being held up after one leggy break. Wasps found a way back. Helu was sent away for his first try by slick interplay off first phase between Simpson, Alex Lozowski and Daly, to bring the visitors to within nine. Michalak’s sixth penalty, after a big Toulon scrum, then set the scene for the drama of Helu’s second. But when Jean Charles Orioli put Williams into the corner the uprising had been quelled. Toulon should find Leinster a different proposition in a fortnight. The quest for that historic third title, though, is still very much on.
Toulon D Armitage; Mitchell, Bastareaud, Mermoz (Giteau, 55), Tuisova; Michalak, Tillous-Borde (Claassens, 69); Menini (Chiocci, 66), Guirado (Orioli, 67), Hayman (capt), Botha (Suta, 70), Williams, Gorgodze (Lobbe, 66), S Armitage, Masoe.
Tries Bastareaud, Williams. Cons Michalak 2. Pens Michalak 6.
Wasps Miller; Helu, Daly, Masi (Davies, 67), Varndell (Leiua, 58); Lozowski (Goode, 45), Simpson; Mullan (McIntyre, 70), Shervington (Festuccia, 52), Cittadini (Cooper-Woolley, 52), Davies, Myall (Gaskell, 66), Johnson, Haskell (capt), Thompson (Young, 70).
Tries Helu 2 Con Goode Pens Lozowski 2.
Sin-bin Miller 22
Referee G Clancy (Irl). Attendance 15,400.
