DEFEAT ON THE COTE D'AZURE: RCToulon 37 - 8 Harlequins

Harlequins crashed out of the Amlin Cup, losing in their quarter-final against Toulon in France by 37 – 8.  The metronomic boot of Jonny Wilkinson slotted five penalties and a conversion in the first half and the game was effectively out of Quins reach thereafter.  As an hostile environment in which to play rugby, the Stade Felix Mayol leads the way. Filled with more than 12,000 baying, partisan Toulonais it is a forbidding, frightening place to play.

 Having been defeated at home only once this season, Toulon were clearly determined not to permit another failure.  They started the match with a pace and physicality which outpaced Harlequins who had been looking for an early score and a good start.  They were not allowed to gain that advantage.  The harder they tried, the more frequently the errors.  With the Toulon pressure keeping play in the Harlequins half, the penalty count rose.  Each opportunity was duly taken as Wilkinson, in immaculate form with the boot, kicked the points. He did so five times in the first twenty minutes to a single good reply from Rory Clegg. 

In an attempt to reduce the widening gap in the score, a rare penalty against Toulon in their own half was kicked to the corner. The loss of the following lineout was almost inevitable. With the scrum under pressure from the massive French pack, Quins were mostly on the back foot and struggling to find an attacking platform, The Toulon defence, too, was strong and physical and forced errors as Quins sought to attack.

Inevitably, a French attack, led by Basteraud and Armitage, threatened the Quins’ line and despite their usual determined defence, the Toulon scrum-half, Tillous-Borde, burrowed over between the posts from the base of a ruck.  The simple conversion from Wilkinson left a half-time score of 22 – 3.

Harlequins started the second half with a determined attack with a determined penetration by Mike Brown taking play deep into the Toulon twenty-two.  When the ball was recycled and moved left there again was Brown, but this time the full back appeared to fail to take advantage of Monye on the overlap for what looked a certain score.    Fortunately for Quins, the referee was playing a penalty advantage and a kick to touch brought a five-metre lineout.  Although that was lost, a further immediate penalty allowed Quins a second chance.  The catch and drive appeared to put Lambert over the Toulon line, but the TMO ruled that he had knocked on. 

Wilkinson was removed from the fray after five minutes of the second half with Giteau taking over the kicking duties.  The opportunity was not long coming as a flare up in the front row say Johnson shown a yellow card and Giteau duly extended the lead.  Gradually the pressure increased from the French forwards and the fullback found a gap for another try easily converted  

The French pack continued to increase the pressure on Quins and inevtitably another try followed from the powerful pack driving Armitage over, There remained enough time for another Harlequins’ attack which although stopped produced a penalty close to the line and a typical Danny Care tap and score.  Clegg’s conversion attempt drifted wide.  A final Toulon attack was resisted and the match ended in  a crushing defeat for Quins.

After the match Conor O'Shea blamed his side's poor start for their Amlin Challenge Cup quarter-final thumping by Toulon.

"When you give away three, six, nine, 12, 15 points in the first 20 minutes, it's the game done," he said. "We talked about discipline and we talked about Jonny before the game.

"We spoke about getting an early score ourselves because that's what you need when you come to places like this but we gave penalties away when we had possession. We had two lineouts to try and build our own momentum but we coughed them up and we lost the battle around the contact area against a very physical team. Penalties come from pressure and we were under the pump. Discipline will always be an issue when you're under pressure ... Jonny doesn't miss."

"We're disappointed to lose a trophy that we worked incredibly hard to win but we know what we're focussed on and we'll concentrate on Wasps next week," O'Shea said. "This is not an easy place to come to. I think it was 39-9 in injury time before Munster scored a try to make it 39-16 when they were here last year and Munster went on to win what was then the Magners League! We just came up against a very good side. Toulon don't lose here very often and they were very much at full strength.

"I've got to credit some of our younger guys for keeping going until the bitter end. We had people like Will Collier at just 21 coming on at tight-head, Rob Buchanan at 20 had 50 minutes at hooker in that sort of atmosphere against Sebastien Bruno and it was also part of Rory Clegg's continued development. A lot of young fellows will have learnt a huge amount out there. They're the environments you have to live and learn in. We'll have learnt a lot of lessons and we'll just focus now on the Premiership."