Bath denied by Toulon in Champions Cup as Anthony Belleau bags late try

Bath’s away form had, until last weekend’s journey down the M5 to Exeter, been impressive, with victories at Leicester, Wasps and the Scarlets. They were within four minutes of adding to the haul in a group that is being characterised by late-winning scores, and will have everything to play for in Saturday’s return.

Bath quickly settled into a routing, absorbing the blow of Toulon’s heavyweight three-quarter line and using turnovers to move them around. It was how they found themselves 10-0 up after 14 minutes, despite Toulon having the ball for 85% of the time. Bath made their first-up tackles count and fed off the turnovers they forced, while establishing an immediate advantage in the scrum that was to win them three penalties in the opening half.

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Toulon were not devoid of finesse, but they are used to wearing down opponents. Few teams combine the might of Mathieu Bastareaud and Ma’a Nonu in the centre and supplement it with two bruisers on the wing, but the most influential three-quarter on the field was the Bath wing Aled Brew, who before signing a short-term contract with the club a year ago, was wallowing in the obscurity of the Welsh Premiership with Bedwas, unable to hold down a place with the Dragons.

Brew is a player whose parts have not always worked in harmony, his body tending to go in one direction and his legs another, but here everything chimed. He set up the opening try of the match with devastating footwork that left his opposite number Josua Tuisova wondering who he had spent the week analysing.

Brew could have dematerialised for all Tuisova knew. Chris Ashton, the last line of defence, managed to slow the wing down, but could not prevent the off-load to Anthony Watson in Bath’s first sustained attack.

They had taken the lead two minutes earlier through a Rhys Priestland penalty after François Trinh-Duc’s knock-on near Bath’s 22 resulted in Ben Tapuai kicking long into unguarded territory.

Toulon remained patient, declining kickable penalties, but their driving mauls were no more impressive than their scrum and they played like a team that expected something to happen, like a missed tackle. Despite spending most of the opening half tackling, Bath should have led by more than six points at half-time.

Brew and Taulupe Faletau linked neatly on the left wing only for the No8, who early in the second half left the field with a knee injury after being taken out at a ruck by Bastareaud, to knock on. Brew was collared by Ashton as the line beckoned and, for all Toulon’s possession and pounding, it was the ability of Priestland – who combined with Jonathan Joseph for Watson’s try when there appeared to be no space to exploit – to spot holes that was proving telling.

Toulon were reaching the point where frustration was kicking in when they found a way back into the match from a scrum, five metres from their own line. As the ball squirted out, the No8 Duane Vermeulen surprised Bath by running and keeping on going. For once, defenders were not confronted by someone running flat out at them: Trinh-Duc glided through a gap and, after Ashton had taken play into Bath’s 22, the home side worked a three-man overlap for Nonu to score.

Priestland’s second penalty made it 13-7 to Bath at the break, but within 10 minutes of the restart, Toulon were ahead through the former Bristol scrum-half Alby Mathewson, who – immediately after his opposite number Chris Cook had been sent to the sin-bin as punishment for his side’s persistent infringing – dummied over from a scrum.

The home crowd found its voice, but Bath held firm and regained the lead after Ashton showed why neither of his club’s in England had considered him to be a full-back. After a quickly taken lineout on the Toulon line, he ran halfway across his in-goal area before aiming a kick to touch that sliced off his right boot and bounced kindly for Joseph.

Toulon were induced to kick a penalty through Trinh-Duc and close the gap to three points, but Bath lost the match five minutes from the end when they had the chance to win it.

The replacement scrum-half Kahn Fotuali’i chose to pass close to the line rather than go for it and the ball was gathered by the replacement flanker Facundo Isa.

He made it to the halfway line and, after Ashton was denied a try by Paul Grant’s tackle, Toulon battered away without finding any weak points in defence.

Then Anthony Belleau, who had just come on for Trinh-Duc, chipped for the line to beat the rush defence and fall on his own kick to win the match.