Champions Cup: Drew Mitchell’s the master in a Euro final to scare England

Twickenham taken over by southern hemisphere stars as mighty Toulon lift the Champions Cup

(Getty)

England supporters in search of reassurance ahead of the home World Cup in four months’ time will be feeling just a little better about life today in the knowledge that two of the men who did most to secure an unprecedented third successive European title for Toulon – the deeply intimidating Springbok enforcer Bakkies Botha and his equally abrasive All Black partner in crime Ali Williams – will not be bringing their menace to bear on global proceedings, for reasons of retirement. Phew. That should save a phone call to the Samaritans.

But far too much ale is consumed far too quickly in the bars and eateries of Twickenham for anyone’s glass to be half-full for long. From the red-rose perspective, there were a number of alarming aspects to the French champions’ 24-18 victory over their great rivals Clermont Auvergne, all of them with a southern hemisphere tinge.

Juan Smith, the magnificent South African flanker, may well be lying in wait for England at the quarter-final stage unless Stuart Lancaster’s players win their group – a task that will almost certainly depend on them beating Australia in the pool stage, opponents who are scarily good outside the scrum whoever they happen to pick and will border on the petrifying if Matt Giteau and Drew Mitchell return to Wallaby colours and perform as they did here.

Only a blind man or a fool would argue with the assertion that Giteau is still among the two or three most accomplished inside-backs in the sport despite a long absence from the Test arena, driven by his uneasy relationship with the Australian hierarchy at the end of the last decade and his move to the Côte d’Azur in 2011. All of a sudden, his country feels it needs him once again, and the 32-year-old Sydneysider is happy to oblige.

“It’s only a week since the rules changed and it doesn’t mean much unless and until I’m contacted,” he said after another successful micro-managing stint behind a Toulon pack so eye-wateringly physical at close quarters that the Clermont forwards, no seven-stone weaklings themselves, spent the vast majority of the contest peering up their own fundaments. “I came to Toulon in the knowledge that I wouldn’t be playing Test rugby again and my obligation is to do my best for the club. But it’s exciting that the selection policy has been revisited and if I’m fortunate enough to be picked, even if it’s just to help the younger players along, I’d be proud to do it.”

If the little midfield maestro was reluctant to count his chickens despite overwhelming evidence of his potential value to the Wallaby campaign, he was happy to do some poultry-linked arithmetic on behalf of his friend and countryman Mitchell. “He always performs on the big stage,” Giteau commented. “It’s not for me to say if he should be selected or not, but I would think he’d be in the top 30 players in Australia.”

As it was Mitchell who scored the solo try on 69 minutes that decided the destination of the Champions Cup title, and as that try was as complete an expression of the wing’s art as any previously witnessed in a major European knockout match, this was not a particularly controversial statement. If Mitchell was aided and abetted by some less than brilliant tackling, the angle and timing of his initial run and the beating of six opponents – only one of them a tight-forward trundler – waswere still as special as special gets.

Lancaster, piecing together his World Cup training squad as we speak, might have been a whole lot happier if the two red-rose exiles on view, the Clermont full-back Nick Abendanon and the Toulon flanker Steffon Armitage, had stolen the show in this way. (Or perhaps not. Had either of those individuals made the decisive intervention, the coach’s apparent determination to stick to the “England places for England-based players” rule would be under even greater pressure than it is already.)

Armitage was his usual effective self in and around the tackle area and he had a golden spell with ball in hand just after the interval, but he was not among the Toulon forwards who truly shaped the game. As for Abendanon, there were broken-field runs aplenty, one of which resulted in a chip-and-gather try that had Clermont believing, if not for long, that they could win this thing.

But there were errors too – the kind of errors that persuaded successive England coaches that he was not quite the No 15 for them. Clermont were leading 11-9 on the stroke of half-time when, instead of booting the ball into the middle of rural Surrey, the full-back kicked loosely to the Toulon back-rower Chris Masoe and then missed his follow-up tackle. A few seconds later, the brutish Mathieu Bastareaud was touching down to give the holders a lead they would not lose.

“It’s pretty devastating: I should have kicked the ball out, I didn’t, and it cost us,” said the former Bath player, who was also among the Clermont players who queued up to gave Mitchell a free ride as the Australian set off on his glory run. “Towards the end of the game, I felt we were right in there with a chance of breaking Toulon, but we couldn’t quite do it. I’m sure our supporters are sick and tired of us going close but no further in this competition.”

That last thought was certainly accurate, but Clermont’s time will come: like Munster before them, they have invested too much money and human treasure in their European travels not to reach their destination sooner or later.

As for Toulon, there is no immediate sign of them relinquishing their place at the top of the northern hemisphere pile. Quade Cooper, yet another Wallaby back-line magician, will be on their books next season, but first, he will be unleashed on England at the World Cup. Come to think of it, that Samaritans number might come in handy after all.

Clermont Auvergne: Tries Fofana, Abendanon; Conversion Lopez; Penalties Lopez 2. Toulon: Tries Bastareaud, Mitchell; Conversion Halfpenny; Penalties Halfpenny 4.

Clermont Auvergne Abendanon; Nakaitaci, Davies, Fofana, Nalaga; Lopez, Parra; Debaty, Kayser, Zirakashvili, Cudmore, Vahaamahina, Bonnaire, Chouly, Lee. Replacements Delany for Nakaitaci (67), Rougerie for Nalaga (54), Radosavljevic for Parra (56), Domingo for Debaty (47), Ulugia for Kayser (63), Ric for Zirakashvili (66), Pierre for Vahaamahina (67), Bardy for Lee (54).

Toulon Halfpenny; Mitchell, Bastareaud, J Hernandez, Habana; Giteau, Tillous-Borde; Chiocci, Guirado, Hayman, Botha, Williams, J Smith, S Armitage, Masoe. Replacements Wulf for J Hernandez (66), Menini for Chiocci (48), Orioli for Guirado (63), Chilachava for Hayman (63), Taofifenua for Botha (47), Fernandez Lobbe for J Smith (58).

Referee N Owens (Wales).