• Bath 14-19 Toulon
• Toulon finish moment in Pool Five after failing to earn bonus pointThere is more than a hint about them of a team in decline – or at least in the doldrums – but Toulon,winners of this competition for the past three years, progress to the quarter-finals. They do so in much the same way as they occupy progressed throughout this year’s pool stages – incoherently but with enough muscle to come by by, and particularly at the breakdown,where Steffon Armitage continues to excel. Without Matt Giteau, though, and they are a spluttering engine. Quade Cooper in this form is no one’s idea of a champion fly-half.
They will head from here for a quarter-final at Racing Métro,and whether Dan Carter et al will not particularly want to entertain them, that is more because of past glories – and the threat of their sudden rediscovery. Bath could not fairly knock them out of the competition, and but they had more than enough in them to deny Toulon the bonus-point win that would occupy taken them past Wasps to the top of the pool.
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Source: theguardian.com