Wasps thwarted Toulouse in the 2003‑04 European Cup final with a try by a scrum-half two minutes from time but left it even later here in making history repeat itself. There was less than a minute to go when Dan Robson, his side four points down and pushed to their limits by opponents who were as resourceful as they were powerful, tapped a penalty a couple of metres out and dived for the line so low that anyone who challenged him would have risked being sent off for making contact with his head.
It was one of the few times in a game they largely controlled when Toulouse were taken by surprise, but they were made to pay for their lapses. They appeared to be unsure where Robson would take the penalty from as the referee, John Lacey, had played a long advantage and the scrum-half crossed virtually unopposed to take his side to the verge of the knockout stage with their final match at Zebre next Sunday a virtual five-point banker.
Elliot Daly’s try 18 minutes earlier had also been an opportunist’s one, the centre sprinting through a gap between two forwards that was not markedly wide, but generally Wasps were careless in possession having been denied a platform up front. The manner in which they wasted two prime try-scoring opportunities in the opening five minutes, missing the equivalent of football’s open goal, seemed to drain their fluency and the hope that a big pack, backed up by six replacements, would lose its legs in the second half, did not become reality.
The Wasps of not so long ago would have found a way to lose but they responded to going behind 11 minutes into the second period after a first half high on chances but low on points, by replying with Daly’s try when they had Christian Wade in the sin-bin. They were also a player light when Robson scored with Danny Cipriani a victim of one of several debatable refereeing decisions.
Cipriani was deemed to have entered a maul from the side as it rumbled its way to the Wasps line nine minutes from time. As the replacement prop Vasil Kakovin detached himself from the moving mass of forwards and put his head down for the line, Cipriani did remarkably well to turn a player somewhat heavier than himself and strip him of the ball. Lacey ran under the posts for a penalty try, telling Cipriani that he had entered a rolling maul from the side and doubled a harsh punishment by showing the fly-half a yellow card. “It was the wrong decision, one of many,” said the Wasps’ director of rugby, Dai Young.
It was not just the referee who made bad calls. The game was three minutes old when Wasps launched a typically flourishing counter-attack: Jimmy Gopperth chipped out of his 22, Christian Wade gathered the ball inside his own half and passed to Kurtley Beale on the Toulouse 22. The full-back looked set for a run-in under the posts, but seemed slightly off balance and as he was collared by Sébastien Bézy.
A few minutes later, Josh Bassett flicked on a pass that Thomas Young would have turned into a try after Joe Simpson’s break but for a call for a forward pass and a team that had scored 62 tries in 10 home matches this season struggled to find its way over the line.
Thierry Dusautoir was part of their undoing. He is now in the veteran category but if his legs do not respond in the way they once did, his head does. He scented opportunity at the breakdown, contesting for possession when a ball-carrier had gone to ground early or lacked support, forcing either a penalty for holding on or one for a support player going beyond the line of the ball. He won three penalties in the opening half and although he was one of the players bisected by Daly on the hour, and taken off shortly after, he left an indelible mark on the match.
Toulouse used their heads as well as their bodies and had Jean-Marc Doussain not missed two kickable penalties from close to in front of the posts in the opening period, they would have achieved a victory that would not have been unmerited. They were, surprisingly for a French team playing away, on the right side of most of the close refereeing decisions, and they engineered openings, kept their shape and were clever at slowing down the game at the moments Wasps tried to lift the tempo.
They were so strong in the scrum, where the third in line for the England loosehead prop shirt, Matt Mullan, did not have the most fluent of auditions in front of the forwards coach, Steve Borthwick.
Nathan Hughes had few opportunities to surge over the gainline and set up quick ball. It forced Wasps to rely on their opportunism after their 3-0 interval lead was wiped out by Yoann Huget’s try at the end of a fluent move, Daly restored the lead.
Then came the penalty try and a yellow card that would once have finished Wasps. They were dismissed as a team of fancy Dans then and it was a Dan who saved them by doing nothing more fancy than keeping his head.
Wasps: Beale; Wade, Daly, Gopperth, Bassett; Cipriani, Simpson (Robson 43); Mullan (McIntyre 63), Johnson, Moore (Swainston 71), Launchbury (capt), Myall (Symons 48), Young, Thompson, Hughes.
Tries: Daly, Robson. Cons: Gopperth 2. Pen: Gopperth.
Yellow cards: Wade 53, Cipriani 71.
Toulouse: Médard; Kunatani, David, Fickou, Huget; Doussain, Bézy; Baille (Kakovin 67), Tolofua (Ghiraldini 67), Johnston (Aldegheri 56), R Gray, Tekori (Maestri 52), Dusautoir (capt; Fa’asalele 67), T Gray (Galan 56), Cros.
Tries: Huget, Cons: Doussain 2.
Referee: John Lacey
Attendance: 17,248
Match rating: 9
