Wasps v Toulon match report: Joe Simpson bursts back into England contention with Toulon demolition

Wasps 32 Toulon 6: There was even a sighting of Stuart Lancaster, for the first time since his departure from the red-rose job following England’s spectacular World Cup pratfall

Frank Halai scores Wasps’ third try (Reuters)

The new England head coach, Eddie Jones, is, on his own admission, a devil one day and an angel the next. There is no such inconsistency about Wasps. Blessed with a counter-attacking game that could have been made in heaven and enough moral fibre to fight the good fight against the very best opponents – the reigning European champions, for example – they are the ones with wings, harps and beautiful singing voices, sitting on God’s right hand.

Having already beaten Bath in the Premiership – a sugar-sweet victory if ever there was one, given that Wasps have taken a very dim view of their old rivals since the bitter wrangle over alleged salary cap abuses and its deeply unsatisfactory outcome – they followed up yesterday by subjecting Toulon, whose massive spending power makes them equally unloved, to a four-try, bonus-point shellacking that will make the whole of northern hemisphere rugby sit up and take notice. Had the Scottish outside-half Ruaridh Jackson not fluffed a straightforward conversion of Nathan Hughes’ wrap-up score early in the final quarter, this would have been the worst European defeat ever inflicted on the three-time winners from the sunny corner of France.

A crowd of 20,000-plus turned up on a raw evening and were treated to any number of rare sights: Steffon Armitage, the so-called lost saviour of the English back row, being given a thorough seeing-to in the loose by the likes of George Smith and James Haskell; Mathieu Bastareaud, a centre the size of a French département, being smashed off the ball at a ruck by Charles Piutau, who happens to be a full-back; Quade Cooper, the celebrated Wallaby outside-half, being given the runaround by Jackson and his fellow midfielders. Cooper arrived with a reputation as a rugby magician. Some magician. He made Tommy Cooper look like Merlin.

There was even a sighting of Stuart Lancaster, for the first time since his departure from the red-rose job following England’s spectacular World Cup pratfall. It was good to see him with something resembling a smile on his face: he may have lost his way just when he needed his internal GPS to give him a clear sense of direction, but he is a man of considerable gifts whom rugby in this country can ill afford to lose. Better still was the round of applause afforded him by the Wasps crowd. If he travelled back to Leeds feeling less inclined to spend his evening speaking to the Samaritans, his trip down the M1 was worthwhile.

It was just Lancaster’s luck that Joe Simpson, the form scrum-half in the country, did himself a mischief just as he was mounting a serious challenge for World Cup inclusion at the back end of last season. Had Simpson stayed fit and played for England as he played yesterday, the entire red-rose landscape might now look different. He did not pick up the man of the match award – that went to the exceptional lock James Gaskell, and quite right too – but in the course of another all-singing, all-dancing performance, he played himself bang into contention for the Calcutta Cup match at Murrayfield in February.

“It’s not a matter of it being Eddie Jones or anyone else,” said Dai Young, the Wasps director of rugby. “I think if Stuart was still in charge, he’d be looking at new combinations. These days, things tend to go in cycles, from World Cup to World Cup, and Joe is pushing hard because he’s right up there as a kicking scrum-half and he’s the best in broken field. One of the things England have been on at him about is game management and I think he’s mastered that. One of the big things for him is that we’ve brought in Dan Robson from Gloucester, because genuine competition tends to focus the mind. If you talk to Joe, he’ll tell you that his main concern is holding on to his place here.”

Stuart Lancaster signs autographs (Rex)

By completing a European clean sweep for the English clubs – the first unblemished weekend since 2008 – Wasps drew as heavily on Simpson’s high-tempo brilliance at half-back as they did on the All Black axis of Piutau and Frank Halai out wide and some combative work from Ashley Johnson, Joe Launchbury and the “everywhere man” Gaskell at the sharp end. There was also a feather in the cap of Jake Cooper-Woolley, the fast-improving but still inexperienced tight-head prop. It was no easy matter, holding an opponent as powerful as Xavier Chiocci at the set piece, but he won two important scrum penalties for his side, the second of them at a crucial moment towards the end of the opening period.

Wasps had opened the scoring through the No 8 Hughes, who put himself on the end of a move sparked by Halai’s open-field demolition of the France Test centre Maxime Mermoz, when Simpson made the first of his grand interventions. With Jackson kicking delicately into space, Simpson beat all-comers hands down with a startling turn of speed and instantly fed Gaskell with the most inspired pass of the contest, allowing the lock to free Jackson on a glory run to the line.

And it was Simpson, once again, who lit the fuse for Halai’s explosive score 10 minutes after the interval – a try that put Wasps far away at 27-6. Exchanges of tackling so heavy that grown men were almost weeping as well as wincing left both sides in a state of advanced disorganisation, yet the scrum-half was able to put some shape on proceedings by hovering up a loose ball and giving his clubmates the go-forward they needed. Between them, Piutau and Halai did the rest in that eye-catching New Zealand way of theirs.

“It’s still early days,” insisted Young, whose day was made complete when Hughes profited from a perfectly executed line-out drive. “All we’ve done is won a couple matches.” True enough. But Leinster, the first victims, and Toulon have claimed the last five Euro titles between them. That suggests a power shift, certainly here in England and perhaps further afield.

Wasps: Tries Hughes 2, Jackson, Halai. Conversions Jackson 3; Penalties Jackson, Daly. Toulon: Penalties Pélissié 2

Wasps C Piutau (A Lozowski, 71); C Wade (S Tagicakibau 66), E Daly, B Jacobs, F Halai; R Jackson, J Simpson (D Robson, 68-74); M Mullan (S McIntyre, 59), C Festuccia (A Johnson, 21), J Cooper-Woolley (L Cittadini, 54), J Launchbury (K Myall, 66), J Gaskell, J Haskell (capt, S Jones, 66), G Smith, N Hughes.

Toulon D Armitage; J Tuisova, M Bastareaud, M Mermoz (T Belan, 71), B Habana; Q Cooper, J Pélissié (S Tillous-Borde, 50); X Chiocci (F Fresia, 51), A Etrillard (B Soury, 63), M Stevens (L Chilichava h-t), S Manoa, R Taofifenua (K Mikautadze 51), J Smith (capt, M Gorgodze, 59), J M Hernandez-Lobbe, S Armitage (D Vermeulen, 51).

Referee J Lacey (Ireland).