London Irish 13 Toulon 19:JONNY WILKINSON kicking his team to victory is normally good news for English rugby but the boot is now on the other foot. The quintessential English sporting hero is a confirmed francophile these days and, as London Irish discovered, he can be as ruthless as any other mercenary with a job to do.
At times like these you can see why the Rugby Football Union is trying to discourage any more of their leading players from relocating across the Channel.
The only consolation for Irish was that the bullet wounds could have been even more severe. Until the last 30 seconds they were in grave danger of not securing a losing bonus point and the scoreboard could have been very messy had Toulon taken all their try-scoring chances.
This has already proved a chastening weekend for a number of Premiership clubs, while French sides won five of their six contests. It is a trend which, on this evidence, will be hard to reverse as long as world-class overseas players continue to find richer pickings in the Top 14. Even taking Wilkinson’s excellence into account, the best player on the field was Toulon’s South African number eight, Joe van Niekerk.
“Apart from the goalkicking, I thought he was the difference between the sides,” said Toby Booth, London Irish’s head coach.
As for Wilkinson, this was a reminder that he does not subscribe to the view his career is on the wane. Yesterday he looked in very decent nick all-round.
“He didn’t look in decline to me,” mused Booth. “I saw him stop George Stowers on the short side 10 metres out . . . I think he’s actually getting a bit better.”
Not until the second half did Ryan Lamb’s trademark miss-passes find runners in full stride accelerating from deep. Lamb remains a talented distributor but the gap in game-changing influence between him and Wilkinson yesterday was considerable.
Irish did at least score one of this year’s best pool tries, an interception close to his own line by Sailosi Tagicakibau ending with a try in the far diagonal corner of the field by Delon Armitage after a slick counter-attack. Toulon, too, scored a beauty after 27 minutes by the New Zealander Rudi Wulf.
Guardian Service
LONDON IRISHD Armitage; Joseph, Seveali'i, Mapasua, Tagicakibau (Ojo, 71); Lamb (Bowden, 71), Hodgson (Allinson, 74); Dermody (capt; Corbisiero, 73), Buckland, Rautenbach (Ion, 67), Kennedy, Casey (Roche, 72), Thorpe, S Armitage, Hala'ufia (Stowers, 54).
TOULONLapeyre; Sackey, Messina (Loamanu, 79), Lovobalavu, Wulf; Wilkinson (May, 79), Mignoni (Magnaval, 68); Taumoepeau (Basteres, 57), Bruno (Ivaldi, 57), Hayman (Merabet, 73), Schofield, Chesney (Suta, 64), Missoup, El-Abd (Sourice, 75), Van Niekerk (capt).
Referee: N Owens(Wales).
