Wasps, the last English side to win the Heineken Cup, are back at Europe’s top table after winning the 20th and final place in the new competition, the Champions Cup, when it starts next season.
The champions of 2004 and 2007 beat the runners-up of 2001 and 2005 with the kind of disciplined play that once marked Anglo-French affairs. Stade played a total of 30 minutes with 14 men and, thereby, totally undermined the policy of playing a pack even bigger than the one that got to within a point of Wasps in the first leg last Sunday.
Instead of losing by 15 points as the bookies had ordained, Wasps won by 14, scoring the only tries of the game while silencing the vocal crowd, which had seen Stade beaten only twice at their home, Stade Jean-Bouin, this season.
Had Andy Goode kicked better, the win would have been even more comfortable. However, by the time his final penalty wobbled over – with six minutes to go – and the replacement prop Michael van Vuuren headed to the sin-bin after only three minutes on the field, the game was long over.
Guy Thompson, starting because Wasps’ first-choice No8, Nathan Hughes, could not put his wedding back any longer, capped a back-row move with three-quarters of the game gone.
Before he reached out and over the line, James Haskell – desperately searching for a seat on England’s plane to New Zealand – had made enough hard yards, before off-loading to the flanker Ashley Johnson in a controlled manner that Stade could not manage all afternoon.
Faced with an up-rated pack and the return of Stade’s captain and totem, Sergio Parisse, Dai Young had opted for a fast-and-loose approach, and the extra zip demanded by Wasps’ director of rugby clearly discomfited the Parisians.
Andrea Masi found space, and the pace of Joe Simpson and Tom Varndell had Stade close to panic at times, but it was the muscular approach of Haskell that set the tone. The Stade old boy – who is currently ploughing a rich furrow – burst through the middle, putting his former team-mates on a collective back foot.
When Goode went wide, Masi spotted the four-on-one overlap, and Varndell was in. The conversion, from out wide, sailed over and – had Goode been as precise six minutes later – Wasps would have been 10 points up with 13 minutes gone.
Instead, Jules Plisson inched Stade back into the game with two penalties – the second coming after a 60-metre “try” from Simpson had been over-ruled in favour of a high tackle by Thompson.
A scramble under the posts resulted in both Haskell and Alexandre Flanquart heading for the sin-bin, and Wasps heading into half-time four points (five on aggregate) ahead.
Only once during those first 40 minutes had Stade managed to make their weight tell, and things got no better in the second half. Every time they looked as if they were going to assert themselves, another forward went to the sin-bin, the lack of discipline ending only when the replacement wing Meyer Bosman fumbled the final play, and Wasps were off to sample the delights of Europe.
“We did very little wrong throughout the game, and I certainly felt like we wanted it more than them,” Young told Wasps’ website. “The boys did themselves proud.
“It has probably been too long that we’ve been out of Europe’s top competition. We are certainly going to have to step up and match performances like today’s on a regular basis.”
