Matt Giteau scores try as Toulon opens European Rugby Champions Cup defence with win over Scarlets

FORMER Wallaby Matt Giteau scored a sharp try as Toulon got its European Rugby Champions Cup defence off to a winning start. Watch the video.

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REIGNING two-time champions Toulon began the defence of their European Rugby Champions Cup crown with a rugged 28-18 victory over a spirited Scarlets.

Former Wallaby playmaker Matt Giteau, centre Maxime Mermoz and English No. 8 Steffon Armitage crossed the whitewash as Toulon finally pulled away in the second half.

The result was enough to put the French champions top of Pool 3 ahead of their trip to Northern Ireland next weekend to face Ulster, who lost 25-18 at Leicester at the weekend.

But they were frustrated at failing to score a fourth try and secure a bonus point.

“We created opportunities and we were going for that bonus point at the end but we couldn’t quite cross the line,” fullback Leigh Halfpenny told France 2.

Matt Giteau dives to score a try for Toulon.

In Dublin, two tries from Darragh Fanning helped Leinster overturn a nine-point deficit at half-time to beat Wasps 25-20 in a tough clash involving two sides who between them had been crowned champions of Europe five times.

Record four-time champions Toulouse beat fellow French Top 14 outfit Montpellier 30-23.

Toulouse now trail Glasgow, who thumped Bath 37-10, in Pool 4, with the Scots travelling to Montpellier next weekend and the English side, champions in 1998, entertaining the four-time winners.

Ospreys ran in five tries to secure a bonus point victory in a 42-7 thumping of Italian outfit Treviso.