Peter Jackson: Pair of Wasps on a collision course

When Wasps went bust with debts of £95m and all 167 employees lost their jobs, a redundant pair of England internationals found new ones in the greener fields of France.

On October 9, 2022, days before the serial champions of England and Europe vanished in clouds of dust, Dan Robson and Jack Willis had given their last blood, sweat and, ultimately, tears for a lost cause.

What they, and the game as a whole, lost that Saturday at the Coventry Building Society arena went far beyond the result: Wasps 36 Northampton 40.

Robson and Willis went their separate ways only to end up in much the same neck of the Top 14 woods; the scrum-half in the foothills of the Pyrenees at Pau, the back row Colossus a three-hour drive away in the Pink City of Toulouse. The similarity went beyond their respective locations.

Head-to-head

Each made his debut on the same weekend, Robson, above, for Pau against Brive on November 26, 2022, Willis for Toulouse at Lyon the following day.

And now there is more than a distinct possibility that the Waspies of yesteryear will go head to head in the finest of all club occasions at the end of next month: The Top 14 Final.

Whatever fate has in store between now and then, nothing can detract from the success of both players, not least in reinforcing the reputation of British players in the sport’s only truly meaningful club event, as based on the ancient concept of promotion and relegation.

During a season when a fit George North became invisible at Provence and an unfit Gareth Anscombe has so far managed a miserable two starts for Bayonne in the nether regions of the Top 14, Robson and Willis have performed week in, week out, season after season.

Each has made 86 appearances over the course of four Top 14 campaigns.

For Robson, a Top 14 crown is now or never before he starts anew at Gloucester next season.

French flair: Jack Willis playing for Toulouse

PICTURES: Getty Images

Crowning glory

For Willis, there seems no end to his crowning glory as the French game’s favourite English import since Jonny Wilkinson sailed into Toulon 17 years ago.

He won the European Cup twice and the Top 14 once. Willis has already won five major titles with Toulouse – two Champions Cups and three Top 14 titles.

Popular opinion will back him to finish the season in his club’s natural habitat at the Stade de France, lifting the heaviest trophy ever devised by man, a 20-kilogram brass shield known as the Bouclier de Brennus.

Despite England refusing to pick him for the petty reason that he dares to play for a club elsewhere, Willis is in no rush to retrace his steps.

Toulouse have him under lock and key until 2029, although their contract is understood to contain a clause allowing Willis to return to England and so qualify for the World Cup later next year.

At 29, he still has time enough to add a few more French titles and perhaps challenge the six as collected by the fearsome Michel Palmie when Beziers ruled the Gallic roost between 1974 and 1981.

More relevantly, nobody will be one bit surprised should he retain his title as the Top 14’s player of the season, some accolade given the competition’s supreme status.

While the so-called Champions Cup cannot justify the grandiosity of its title, La Ligue Nationale de Rugby does not kow-tow to rich owners like the emasculated English Premiership, a title now officially shrunk to the Prem in keeping with its shrinking number.

In France, at least, promotion and relegation remains inviolate. Amen.