Toulon celebrates the 2014 Heineken Cup win against Saracens
Comic magnate Mourad Boudjellal’s Toulon retained the Heineken Cup trophy with a comprehensive victory, by seventeen points, over English club Saracens at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff yesterday. The final score was Saracens 6/23 Toulon.
This victory proved that in the modern era of sports it is most often the team who has the biggest pot of gold available to it who will win the trophy as on the same day Toulon’s football equivalent Real Madrid lifted the Champions League trophy just hours later in Lisbon. The final score of 4/1 to Real Madrid may make their victory seem as comprehensive as Toulon’s.
However, this was not the case as Real Madrid came from behind against Atletico Madrid, scoring a equalizer just minutes from the end of normal time to force that game into extra time and they only went into the lead around the 20th minute of extra time. Like Toulon, Real have been big spenders and for this season had spent £86 million on one player alone, bringing Welshman Gareth Bale over from England. Bale was the very same player whose goal from an impressive header put Real Madrid into the lead for the first time in the match.
The theme of big spenders winning these days was shown to be true earlier this month as another football club, Manchester City, who have been admonished by UEFA (Europe’s footballing body) for the amount of money they have spent compared to what they have brought in, won the English Premiership title on the final day of the season. Furthermore, Queens Park Rangers (QPR) secured promotion from the English Championship to the English Premiership yesterday, beating Derby County with a late goal in the play-off final at Wembley. QPR have been funded by various wealthy people in recent time going back to 2007 when Formula One tycoons Bernie Eccleston and Flavio Briatore bought the club. However, they are an example that serves as a caution that big spending can come with pitfalls as they have had various owners come and go in that time with various associated controversies and although initially they gained success climbing various divisions to eventually get into the Premiership they only lasted two seasons before being relegated and having to fight their way back up for next season.
Back to rugby and it was in Cardiff where another high profile sportsman recruited from playing in England, Jonny Wilkinson, was arguably the star of the show for Toulon contributing thirteen points with his trusty boots. This was a good early birthday present for Wilkinson, whose birthday is today, who was appearing in his final match on British soil. He will get one more chance to add to his already impressive list of achievements as Toulon need to quickly come down from the celebrations and prepare to face Castres in the French Top 14 Final on Saturday.
Saracens, another club who have invested heavily in recent time – on a player recruitment front as well as developing a fantastic modern stadium with an artifical pitch, will be very disapointed at not managing to secure the last ever Heineken Cup trophy. However, they need to pick themselves up quickly as they get another shot at winning a title next weekend when they play in the Aviva Premiership final against Northampton Saints. Northampton, like Toulon, will be aiming to ‘do the double’ as they won the Amlin Challenge Cup final (Europe’s second tier club competition) against fellow English club bath at Cardiff Arms Park on Friday night. Northampton have also spent a bit with their most high profile signing in recent time being highly rated star Welsh winger George North.
Another indication of the power of the purse is that in winning the Heineken Cup Toulon’s Bryan Habana became the fourth player in history to win the treble of rugby’s big trophies – The Heinken Cup, World Cup and Super Rugby trophy. Two of the other three players he joined in the elite list are also his team mates at Toulon – Bakkies Botha and Danie Rossouw. All three players happened to play for one of the richest franchises in South African rugby – The Bulls, when they won their Super Rugby medals.
A description of how the Heineken Cup Final unfolded follows, courtesy of bbc:
Jonny Wilkinson marked his last game on British soil by leading Toulon to back-to-back Heineken Cup crowns as they outclassed Saracens in Cardiff.
A first-half try from former Wallaby Matt Giteau and Wilkinson’s drop-goal put the French giants 10-3 up at half-time after Owen Farrell’s penalty.
He landed another on the resumption but Wilkinson, his predecessor as England fly-half, restored the advantage.
Juan Smith finished a fine move before another Wilkinson penalty sealed it.
The 2003 World Cup-winning hero, who kicked 13 points in all in his penultimate game before retirement, is now just one game away from crowning a remarkable career with the perfect ending, when Toulon go in search of a first French league title since 1992 in the Top 14 final next Saturday.
Regardless of what happens against Castres, he will go down in Toulon folklore for helping the club become only the third side, after Leicester in 2002 and Leinster in 2012, to successfully defend the Heineken Cup, one day before his 35th birthday.
Saracens, led by their own retiring captain Steve Borthwick, may rue their inability to crack open a resolute Toulon defence, in what was the last ever staging of the competition before it is replaced by the European Rugby Champions Cup next season.
Mark McCall’s side still have the prospect of their own domestic title, when they face Northampton in next week’s Premiership final, and they have made genuine progress over the past 12 months, after falling to the same opposition at the last-four stage a year ago.
Farrell landed a Sarries penalty for the only score in a first 20 minutes characterised more by eye-watering tackles than pulsating play.
Saracens survived a Toulon charge with gritty defending and mounted their own period of pressure, absorbing some massive hits in the process.
When Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe was sin-binned for taking Alistair Hargreaves out in the air it seemed there might be a chance to capitalise, but it was the French side who emerged with the game’s first try.
It was Australian made, with Giteau’s chip through eluding Alex Goode and bouncing for Drew Mitchell, who fed the ball back to his on-rushing countryman for a simple finish, Wilkinson adding the extras.
Back up to full numbers, Toulon thundered forward from a catch-and-drive to create room for the left-footed Wilkinson to land a trademark drop-goal with his supposedly weaker right foot – the same one that won the World Cup 11 years ago.
A Saracens surge immediately after the break resulted in Farrell popping over a penalty, only for Wilkinson to land one of his own from just inside the London side’s half.
And then the reigning champions stretched clear as Mathieu Bastareaud made yards and found Smith, who received the ball back from Fernandez Lobbe and crossed for a superb try that belied the lack of quality the game had possessed to that point.
Wilkinson, faultless from the tee all evening, converted and slotted over a penalty to put the gloss on Toulon’s performance, before being replaced with two minutes remaining to a resounding roar of approval and chants of “Jonny, Jonny” in an emotional farewell to a British audience.
Teams:
Saracens: 15 Alex Goode, 14 Chris Ashton, 13 Marcelo Bosch, 12 Brad Barritt, 11 David Strettle, 10 Owen Farrell, 9 Richard Wigglesworth, 8 Billy Vunipola, 7 Jacques Burger, 6 Kelly Brown, 5 Alistair Hargreaves, 4 Steve Borthwick (captain), 3 Matt Stevens, 2 Schalk Brits, 1 Mako Vunipola
Replacements: Jamie George (for Schalk Brits, 69 min), Richard Barrington (for Mako Vunipola 65 min), James Johnston (for Matt Stevens, 64 min), Mouritz Botha (for Alistair Hargreaves, 64 min), Jackson Wray (for Jacques Burger, 61 min), Neil de Kock (for Richard Wigglesworth, 51 min), Charlie Hodgson (for Owen Farrell, 64 min), Chris Wyles (for David Strettle, 69 min).
Toulon: 15 Delon Armitage, 14 Drew Mitchell, 13 Mathieu Bastareaud, 12 Matt Giteau, 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Jonny Wilkinson (captain), 9 Sebastien Tillous Borde, 8 Steffon Armitage, 7 Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe, 6 Juan Smith, 5 Danie Rossouw, 4 Bakkies Botha, 3 Carl Hayman, 2 Craig Burden, 1 Xavier Chiocci
Replacements: 16 Jean Charles Orioli (for Craig Burden, 41 min), 17 Alexandre Menini (for Xavier Chiocci, 46 min), 18 Martin Castrogiovanni (for Carl Hayman, 57 min), 19 Ali Williams (for Bakkies Botha, 52 min), 20 Virgile Bruni (for Juan Smith, 72 min), 21 Maxime Mermoz (for Jonny Wilkinson, 77 min), 22 Michael Claassens (for Sebastien Tillous Borde 71 min), 23 Jocelino Suta (for Danie Rossouw, 52 min).
Sin-binned: Fernandez Lobbe (22)
Referee: Alain Rolland (Ireland)
Assistant Referees: Nigel Owens (Wales) and George Clancy (Ireland)
Attendance: 67,578
Some after-match quotes
Jonny Wilkinson: “I’d like to take a bit of time out. I want to see Toulon reach its potential. I have lived 17 years where every weekend your life hangs in the balance. I’ve now reached the time where I won’t have to worry about what-ifs. As everyone knows the best laid plans go out of the window as soon as a match starts. But our discipline was good enough in defence and we didn’t give away those easy penalties. We made it hard for them in set-piece. You play like there is no tomorrow. You play like it is everything you have got.”
“That for me represents the end. It’s the end of a long journey. My mind is already starting to tick towards that moment against Castres.”
Bakkies Botha: “We definitely said to each other Saracens would look to get stuck in at the set-piece and dominate contact situations.”
“The first 20 minutes was very physical but we kept our calm and stuck to our guns until the first try came from Matt Giteau, and from then on we just built our performance.”
“It’s two in a row now but we have a big, big match next weekend against Castres in Paris but tonight we’re just going to enjoy this.”
Hi Rage I see your comments about Toulon on another thread and that basically forms the bulk of the article here that I wrote ie. money buys success. As you say was also wondering where do Toulon go with quite a few of their stars getting long in the tooth and Jonny retiring but then soon realized they will just buy more stars, although maybe it will take a season or so for the new lot to gel together as well as the current squad has, or is that just wishful thinking…
I didn’t watch the game so while penned the first part of the article had to ‘borrow’ from elsewhere to bring the detail of the game to you all.
@ Bullscot:
Hi Bullscot
I like how the author of this article alluded to the big European soccer clubs spending gazillions on players,all in the name of success.Thing is, soccer is the most popular sport in the world and things have been like that for a couple of decades…BUT… can rugby afford to go that way? I don’t know…
@ Rage:
Yes Rage as both big European finals took place on the same day and both won by the big spenders I thought it would be a good comparison to use that as part of the material for my article. That money for Bale alone £80 million is staggering. It is a question of whether it is sustainable and QPR is an example of where things have not always worked well with money thrown about, and good to see finally that UEFA stepped in and have taken action against some clubs whose spending has far outweighed their income, whether the punishments are tough enough is another debate but at least they are doing something about it to try encourage a bit more responsibility. On one hand the money going into rugby is good because it brings us the very competitions that we watch but the big problem, as in football, which we don’t always see is the smaller clubs struggling to retain players and going bust in trying to do what they can to pay players enough to keep them, not always even the small clubs as we have seen in Scotland what has happened to giants Rangers.
Rugby players at the big clubs are earning a lot from us normal folks perspective but it is small change compared to what the top football players get.
Hi robzim, sorry that I mentioned the Man City taking the title but it fitted the bill, and you may note I didn’t mention whose nose they took it from under, but think you guys must feel now that you threw it away yourselves against Crystal Palace.
@ Rage:
Regarding your comments about Jonny getting knighthood one has to think that if he was going to get knighthood it would have been while he was still playing for England and especially after helping England win the World Cup, surely he can’t get a knighthood for leading the enemy/opposition to glory. Maybe one day if he gets success in coaching and takes England to more glory then it could be considered.
@ Bullscot:
Sorry,I didn’t notice that it was you who wrote the article.But yes,it was most significant that both of the European finals took place on the same day and that the victors are the biggest spenders in the game.It’s telling…and to the detriment of smaller clubs across Europe,especially.Having said that,I’d like to see those bastards take on the Bulls in stampede mode at Loftus or the Sharks at Sharkpark or whatever their stadium these days 🙂
6 @ Rage:
Spot on, the smaller clubs in Europe are struggling but the extent of the power of the big spending clubs goes far beyond that as we, New Zealand, Australia etc have seen with many top players being lured away to the northern Hemisphere. Initially it seemed to be mainly either the lesser know players who weren’t really able to make it big at SA teams or stars near retirement trying to make the most of their earnings in what was left of their careers or some players who weren’t getting into their national teams moving over to qualify for different countries, but now more and more we see top players and the early stages of their career who have been capped by their countries moving around.
6 @ Rage:
while I have not seen nearly enough SA rugby in recent time I would guess that on current form Toulon and some of the other top French teams would beat the Bulls and Sharks, and Saracens may do as well. Ignore the result of the Sharks/Saracens preseason game as it was a much weakened Saracens team they played who had their league they were in the middle of as their priority.
Sharkpark
Good morning nortierd guess you must still be really happy after your team’s luck win yesterday
@ Bullscot:
Correct.It used to be the lesser known players who upped and left for the NH (Mouritz Botha, Gerhard Vosloo, Antonie Claassen,Hendre Fourie,etc) while your top players stuck around and only headed over for one last pay cheque(or 2).But hell, when the incumbent Wallaby captain joins the NH fray one year out from a World Cup you just know that there’s trouble on the horizon.
10 @ Rage:
Difficult to know how to approach things, have always been in favour of players moving about/clubs recruiting from elsewhere but as long as it has been in relative balance, problem is who decides what that level of balance is, think we have gone over the edge by now. At least in South Africa’s case there is a big conveyor belt of young talent to come through and replace what has left, although each one takes time only a few who can step straight up from junior rugby at any given time. Must get going this side, catch you another time Rage
Bakkies Botha, Danie Rossouw and Bryan Habana won the cup for superugby, currie cup, world cup, tri nations, heineken cup, lion series. Wow, what careers they had.
Bullscot wrote:
Afternoon Bully
I picked Saracens, knew everyone was going to go for Touloun and I was 3rd in my pool, so if Sarries won I would have snuck into top spot.
Touloun played really well, the only blight IMO is Habana and his shenanigans. He really is getting past it now, he can’t even out sprint players after an intercept lately and then he acts injured when he messes up.
And the less said about that soccer dive the better….disgusting behavior on a rugby field
13 @ nortierd:
It is a pity though if you seen Habana doing those things have a lot of time for the man but certainly don’t want to see any play acting on the rugby field. If he has lost his pace do you not think it better for him to return to centre after all these years. He still has two years left on his Toulon contract so if he stays injury free still has plenty of games to play and that’s excluding any possible internationals.
Hello nortierd no man I was actually referring to the lucky win of your team at Newlands yesterday
12 @ leon:
Hello Leon, now that is a very impressive list of achievements you put up there just shows what good quality players Botha Rossouw and Habana are and how well they have done to have stayed at the top for most of their careers.
12 @ leon:
And they get a chance on Saturday to add the Top 14 title to that list…
@ BullScot 13
Lol, Stormers did ok yesterday, bonus point in those conditions, at least it shows intent.
Cheetahs were dismal, it must be said.
Sharks will be a much tougher opponent and I can’t see us even competing with them, let alone be much of a challenge.
Re Habs, I like him and he has done a hell of a lot for SA rugby, but he has been the boy who cries wolf for a couple of years now. You can be sure that at some stage during a game he will fake and injury
@ nortierd:
Too bad Eben isn’t playing , the sharks are vulnerable when teams stand up to them physically, not many teams can do that.
@MB
One guy who is happy Eben isn’t playing is Bismarck. He will have nightmares of being put on his arse agains. Thinks he can tackle Eben…mphh, te lig in die broek is ou Bissie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCHFsHlKpoo
http://youtu.be/ZCHFsHlKpoo
ag fok ek gee op
MacroBull wrote:
He he
Darem maar mooi
Die internet is weer kaka stadig vanaand 👿 👿 👿 👿 👿
@25
If Carol sees that video clip she will sit and rewind the whole night MB.
@ MacroBull:
@ nortierd:
Oh what a lovely end to a lovely day…….
Percy Montgomery scoring his 16th try for SA …. Looks great on full screen!!
@ Blue Bird:
Glad you enjoyed it Carol 🙂
@ MacroBull:
It was just great!! 😆
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