Australia wing Drew Mitchell scored a match-winning try after the final buzzer to keep holders Toulon’s European Rugby Champions Cup defense alive on Sunday.
With time up, Toulon trailed Wasps 11-8 and faced the prospect of needing to win away to Bath next weekend in their final pool match and rely on other results going their way to reach the quarter-finals.
However, Mitchell’s try, thanks to a perfectly weighted pass from New Zealand back Ma’a Nonu, gave the reigning three-time champions a crucial 15-11 victory that put them top of Pool 5 above Wasps, who lost for the second time in this year’s competition to a try after the buzzer.
Photo: AFP
“I really thought it was over,” Toulon coach Bernard Laporte said.
Until Mitchell’s try, Wasps looked set to join Racing 92, who earlier pounded Welsh side Scarlets 64-14, Saracens and Leicester in the last eight.
Now Dai Young’s side must beat Leinster at home next weekend to go through.
When the two sides met in November last year, Toulon were unrecognizable and Wasps cruised to a handsome 32-6 thrashing.
It was very different this time around, though, as the European champions dominated the early exchanges.
A desperate last-gasp double-tackle from Sailosi Tagicakibau and Joe Simpson prevented Bryan Habana from scoring a certain try in the left corner.
However, it was Habana himself who helped create the game’s opening try on 12 minutes.
The South Africa wing intercepted the ball inside Toulon’s 22 and started an attack that saw Josua Tuisova break down the right wing before passing inside to Quade Cooper to score.
Habana was in the thick of things and it was he who was barged into touch by George Smith after he had kicked ahead, which saw Wasps find themselves down to 14 men as the Australia flanker was sent to the sin-bin.
Eric Escande kicked the resulting penalty, but Wasps managed their numerical disadvantage expertly, pushing Toulon back inside their own half before earning a kick of their own in front of the posts, which Jimmy Gopperth did not miss.
Toulon replacement flyhalf Frederic Michalak missed a simple-looking kick before the hour mark, after which Gopperth reduced the arrears with his own successful attempt.
Ten minutes from time, Elliot Daly brushed off Nonu in midfield and helped set up Guy Thompson to crash over in the corner, breaking through one tackle, handing off a second tackler and resisting the attentions of two further Toulon players to score.
Wasps looked set for a famous win, but Toulon demonstrated why they have ruled Europe for the past three years as Mitchell had the last word.
Racing ran in nine tries in their rout of the Scarlets, with All Blacks star Dan Carter amassing 13 points with the boot.
That means they cannot be caught at the top of Pool 3 by Northampton, who needed a late try from coach Jim Mallinder’s teenage son, Harry, to secure a 19-15 win over Glasgow.
Samoa-born former New Zealand international center Casey Laulala scored a hat-trick, but the try of the game was a brilliant individual effort from young Frenchman Louis Dupichot.
The match was over as a contest long before halftime as Racing ran in five converted tries for a 38-0 advantage.
The big-spending French outfit even had the luxury of taking Carter, who had started the game at inside center, with Remi Tales at flyhalf, off after 52 minutes.
Scarlets’ fifth defeat in five games was the Celtic League leaders’ record defeat in the competition, surpassing a 41-0 hiding suffered at Clermont in 2008.
Also on Sunday, Northampton outscored Glasgow by three tries to nil in their 19-15 victory.
However, they still needed a 78th-minute try from 19-year-old wing Harry Mallinder after four penalties from Finn Russell and one from Stuart Hogg had given the Scots an unlikely lead at Franklin’s Gardens.
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