Man behind the Match: Rob Howley and the 2004 Heineken Cup final

The final act of Rob Howley’s playing career was about as perfect as you can ask for.
Any rugby fan worth his salt can replay the Welsh scrum-half’s Heineken Cup-winning, scene-stealing, Clement Poitrenaud-embarrassing try in their mind’s eye but winger Tom Voyce had the best seat in the house.
With the scores locked at 20-20 in a Twickenham clash that Toulouse had dominated from start to finish it was the talismanic No.9 who saved his best to last.
All season long assistant coach Shaun Edwards had drummed into his side the importance of chasing lost causes, of not giving up on any ball.
And as the clocked ticked round to the 78th minute Howley’s grubber kick through should, by rights, have been handled easily by Poitrenaud, the Toulouse full-back and reigning Six Nations champion.
But when Poitrenaud delayed, fatally, on his own try line it was only ever going to be Howley, hurling himself from what felt like the five-metre line to beat the Frenchman to the touch. But according to Voyce it could have all been so different.
“I was absolutely dead on my feet by that point,” remembers the former England winger. “The ball was cleared down the left-hand touchline and it bounced directly between me and Rob.
“That final bounce sent it in his direction and I can just remember feeling so relieved if I’m honest!
“I was 22-years-old, still new on the scene and I was terrified of being the one who was going to mess this up for us.
“So when Rob put the little kick through I was so pleased that he had taken the responsibility.
“I’m expecting the full-back to clear the ball so rather than chase it with Rob I stayed back expecting to have to field a clearing kick.

“But instead I’m there watching something unfold that I will never forget. I could not have been any more perfectly in line with the kick. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a kick go so straight, it just kept on bouncing and rolling and before you knew it Rob was on it.
“We call that area of the pitch coffin corner, I’ve played full-back in my career and I know that sometimes you do end up waiting and just praying the ball will go dead or veer into touch.
“But not this day, he just held on too long and Rob was the man there, in the right place at the right time as he always was.
“He just got it, he understood rugby so he knew when to pass, when to spot a moment when a defender’s back was turned, and that’s why he’s the phenomenal coach he is now.
“But back then I ran down the line to congratulate him and he knew, instinctively, that it was a try – he just turned to me and said ‘I’ve done it’.”
The agony of waiting for the TMO to confirm it was purely a stay of execution for Toulouse. The try was awarded and Mark van Gisbergen put over the conversion for good measure.
And, just like that, Wasps had claimed their first-ever Heineken Cup final in a game that Voyce himself is happy to admit they had no right to win.
But Wasps were a team on a mission that season. The reigning Premiership champions were chasing an incredible double in Warren Gatland‘s second year at the helm.
The same Gatland, who almost a decade later has cemented himself as one of the greatest coaches the northern hemisphere has known.
Voyce says: “With Warren turning up at the club and Shaun Edwards coming with him was a huge turnaround for us. The blitz defence was about to become well known but we were the first with Shaun to really make the most of it.
“Everyone knows about Warren and Shaun’s reputations nowadays after what they’ve done with Wales but the unsung hero there was Craig White.
“His work on our strength and power was amazing, 40 minutes out on the pitch then 40 minutes in the gym.
“We were physically dominating our opposition and that was entirely down to Craig and his fantastic work.
“The Heineken Cup was something we had targeted that season. We had won the Premiership and, of course, we wanted to defend that title but the next natural step was Europe for us.”
Voyce and co would need all their strength and fitness in a remarkable run to the Twickenham showpiece that had more than its fair share of late drama.
Drawn in Pool 6 alongside Celtic Warriors, Perpignan and Calvisano, Gatland’s side were always going to be favourites to top the group and seal a home quarter-final.

And while that was exactly what they did, as Voyce remembers, it was not quite as easy as the record books show.
“Perpignan had made the final of the Heineken Cup the year before and we had to go there in our last group game to make sure that we got a home quarter-final,” he said.
“That game will live long in my memory for the gladiatorial battle that went on. We were right up against it in a fantastic stadium with a crowd baying for blood.
“Joe Worsley sliced his foot in half, it was horrific, at one point I think it was only his boot holding his foot together! They were absolutely brutal. That same game saw Rob (Howley) get the wrist injury that eventually cost him his career.
“Lawrence had driven home how important a home quarter-final was and Perpignan had not lost at home for a long time so we wanted to put an end to that.
“My try in the second half really broke the game open, Rob put me in the clear and after that we were sailing.”
After surviving an early onslaught at the Stade Aime Giral the London side ran out 34-6 winners, skipper Dallaglio sealing the bonus point deep into injury time.
Wasps then had to take on Gloucester in the quarter-finals and the Cherry and Whites made the fatal mistake of angering Dallaglio and co in the warm up.
“Lawrence is not shy of making a big, emotional speech, he’s brilliant at them and led by example,” adds Voyce.
“That Gloucester quarter-final was a great example of him firing us up and we blitzed them.
“We used to warm up in the bottom right-hand corner of the pitch for our home games whereas Gloucester liked to do a half pitch run through their moves.
“They came right down into our corner and got right in our space. That was all we needed really, Lawrence came steaming back into the changing room before kick-off blowing up about the lack of respect shown to the English champions.
“We went out there and blew them away – and we were in a Heineken Cup semi-final.”
Were it not for the dramatic climax to the final, it is likely that the Munster semi at Lansdowne Road would be the game everyone remembers.
Indeed those who were at the game will never forget the topsy-turvy clash that had just about everything you could ever ask from a game of rugby before Wasps won it 37-32 thanks to Trevor Leota’s late score.
“Winning in Ireland was the big moment for us really,” says Voyce. “Having been to Perpignan and then to Ireland and come away with the wins, we were no longer frightened of anyone.
“We felt we could go anywhere and play any side and be good enough. Heading to Ireland for that semi-final was such an amazing occasion.
“The way we were welcomed was amazing, everyone we met at the airport, the hotel, were all so nice and warm.
“‘You guys are so strong’, they were saying, ‘Oh you’ll stuff our boys so you will’. That was the sort of thing we were hearing.
“But then gameday comes and it was like someone had flicked a switch, those same people were effing and blinding, screaming and shouting, rocking the bus on the way to the ground. From being so friendly, all of a sudden we felt like we were behind enemy lines.
“That was the game that won us the Heineken Cup in my eyes, personally speaking it was my best day in a Wasps shirt.”
Wasps scored five tries to Munster’s two that day but the London club still found themselves 32-22 down with 20 minutes remaining.
As the clock ticked down it was Voyce who fired up the comeback, crossing for his side’s fourth try that levelled the scores before creating Leota’s last-gasp score to turn the game on its head.
“Coming into the game one of our main targets had been to get Ronan O’Gara out of the game. We had managed to do that but Paul Holland, who replaced him, was kicking superbly.
“Anthony Foley went over for a try for them and Lawrence called us under the posts and read us the riot act: there was no way we were going to lose to these Irish f***ers.
“At least I think that was what he was saying, the noise was so loud that I was having to lip read.
“My try was a proud moment. That had only levelled the scores but we were on a roll.
“What few people remember is that the stadium clock was wrong. It was way behind the clock that was on the TV so we thought we had much more time to play with.
“When I made my break down the left for Trevor’s score I thought we had about ten minutes to go. Had I known it was only three I would never have tried to go outside him, I would have cut back and waited for support.
“But luckily I didn’t and it was left to Trevor to do the business. How he scored I will never know, but he got the job done.
“It was nice that it was Trevor, who was going through some tough personal issues at the time with his family. The night out in Dublin was pretty spectacular to say the least.”
The cauldron of Lansdowne Road had been conquered, surely after that a Heineken Cup final at Twickenham was going to be child’s play for Wasps?
“We were lucky that we had played a few double headers, so Twickenham did feel like something of a second home,” he said.
“But that only goes so far, Toulouse as the defending champions were always going to be a huge test. But we really felt it was fate that we were going to win it that year. The Munster game was such a huge moment for us.
“We got destroyed by Gloucester in the Premiership after coming home from Ireland but in the final we worked so hard. Joe Worsley was the man of the match in that final by a country mile, he just tackled everything that moved.
“In the build-up to the final we had been preparing for Finau Maka, the No.8 who was an absolute beast. Joe just got big guys to run at him for hours on end on the training paddock, to get used to tackling someone of that size. He was so meticulous when it came to preparing for games and this was no different.
“But despite Joe’s heroics and the way we had prepared I, to this day, have no idea how we won that game.”
Stuart Abbott and Mark van Gisbergen both went over for Wasps but those were rare sorties out of their own half as Guy Noves’  Toulouse side were totally dominant.
After replacement scrum-half Jean Baptiste Ellisalde had kicked the defending champions level at 20-20 there looked like there would be only one winner, before Howley’s late intervention.
“You just could not believe that Toulouse only scored one try that day,” remembers Voyce.
“My opposite man was Emile Ntamack who was coming to the end of his career but everywhere you looked there were stars.
“They were too good really, they were running rings round us but ended up running up their own backsides, they were trying to do too much.
“Cedric Heymans was the most guilty, a bounce going the wrong way, cutting back when he should have gone for the corner. He should have had a hat-trick in the first half alone.
“But we clung in there, Joe just tackling like a demon and Stuart and Mark had done well with their tries in what were really our only two opportunities of the match.”
World Cup-winner Matt Dawson had announced that he would be joining Wasps the following year and, with wrist surgery booked in for the summer, Howley, at 34, was always up against it to prolong a glittering career.
The Welshman certainly had no intention of that final being his last game, but after the surgery in the off-season failed to knit the bone back together it was time up for the Welshman, but what a way to go.
“Rob was incredible, he really was,” says Voyce. “If his surgery had been a success he would have kept going because his brain worked that little bit faster than everyone else’s.
“How did you pick between him and Daws anyway, it was nigh on impossible. But spare a thought for Clement Poitrenaud, while we were in the changing room celebrating like mad, the Toulouse players could not get onto their   team bus. Apparently Poitrenaud had got there first and locked himself in the coach!
“He must have felt terrible and didn’t want to look his teammates in the eyes until he had made peace with it. So they’re all stuck outside the bus and we’re inside whooping and cheering.
“They won again the year after, so we had ruined their hat-trick but that was us really. If there was one thing that Wasps side liked to do it was spoil a party.”
WASPS: Van Gisbergen, Lewsey, Waters, Abbott, Voyce, King, Howley, Payne, Leota, Green, Shaw, Birkett, Worsley, Volley, Dallaglio.
Replacements: Nwume, Lock, Gotting, Purdy, Richards, Denney, Erinle
Scorers: Tries – Howley, Abbott, Van Gisbergen; Cons – Van Gisbergen (3); Pens – Van Gisbergen (2); Yellow cards: Dallaglio (56)
TOULOUSE: Poitrenaud, Ntamack, Desbrosse, Jauzion, Heymans, Delaigue, Michalak, Collazo, Poux, Pelous, Brennan, Bouilhou, Maka F, Labit.
Replacements: Fiorini, Bru, Gerard, Maka I, Elissalde, Clerc, Millo-Chluski
Scorers: Try – Delaigue; Pens – Elissalde (3), Delaigue (2)