The weather meant it was not pretty as Toulouse out-muscled Toulon to retain their Top 14 crown.
The first half was a tit for tat kicking duel between Jonny Wilkinson and Luke Mc Alister and they turned round at 9-9. At this stage it had been Toulon who had tried to play most of the rugby but dropped balls and then penalties in the ensuing scrums put them under pressure.
The second half and Toulon at last got some penalties at scrum time themselves but still it was a clash of the boots. Both 10’s missed drop kicks and then Jonny fell short with a goal attempt from far out. Lapeyre had a go and he fell short as well. These and the binning of Davit Kubriashvili from a scrum infringement put paid to Toulon. With mc Alister taking Toulouse out to 18-12, this meant Toulon had to run the ball in the last 5 minutes and although they pummelled the Toulouse line they could not cross it.
So Toulouse won the day, albeit a little fortuitously in some of the scrum awards that did not look legal with early shoves and boring in creating a strong platform for them. You play what you can however and Toulouse the more street wise team deserved the win and final score of:
Toulouse 18 – 12 Toulon
Scorers
Toulouse
Pens: 6 McAlister
Toulon
Pens: 4 Wilkinson
Teams
Toulouse: 1 Gurthro Steenkamp, 2 William Servat, 3 Census Johnston, 4 Yoann Maestri, 5 Patricio Albacete, 6 Jean Bouilhou, 7 Thierry Dusautoir (C), 8 Louis Picamoles, 9 Jean marc Doussain, 10 Luke Mcalister, 11 Timoci Matanavou, 12 Florian Fritz, 13 Yann David, 14 Vincent Clerc, 15 Clement Poitrenaud.
Replacements: 16 Christopher eric Tolofua, 17 Daniel Human, 18 Gregory Lamboley, 19 Yannick Nyanga kabasele, 20 Luke Burgess, 21 Yannick Jauzion, 22 Lionel Beauxis, 23 Yohan Montes.
Toulon: 1 Eifion thomas Lewis roberts, 2 Sebastien Bruno, 3 Davit Kubriashvili, 4
John philip Botha, 5 Simon dalton Shaw, 6 Johann Van niekerk, 7 Steffon Armitage,
Juan martin Fernandez lobbe, 9 Sebastien Tillous borde, 10 Jonathan Wilkinson, 11 David Smith, 12 Matthew Giteau, 13 Mathieu Bastareaud, 14 Alexis Palisson, 15 Benjamin Lapeyre.
Replacements: 16 Mickael Ivaldi, 17 Laurent Emmanuelli, 18 Christophe Samson, 19 Pierrick Gunther, 20 Geoffroy Messina, 21 Luke Rooney, 22 Fabien Cibray, 23 Levan Chilachava.
