WASPS are in the process of wilfully regressing into some of rugby union’s old traditions, which they once seemed intent on exploding into a million pieces. The big question is why take a backward step? Next to Leicester, Wasps have been the force of English professional rugby. Three consecutive Premiership titles from 2003 to 2005 and the Heineken Cup in 2004 means they will always be remembered as more than a footnote in the first decade of professionalism.

Yet were they ever a great rugby team? Some point to the fact that Wasps were regular-season runners-up in England. Irrelevant. The club played the rules and paced themselves perfectly. Nobody who saw their demolition of Gloucester and Leicester in their first and third finals could doubt their superiority and the final against Bath, sandwiched between the two, was a reminder that, when the side were off-key, they had guts to go with the sheer running power of their game at its best.

It is that Toulouse triumph at Twickenham that makes me wonder. After an epic final where Wasps’ will to win prevailed, their coach Warren Gatland mused on the fact that the best team lost the final. And he was deadpan. He was not talking about the jutting spirit that Lawrence Dallaglio brought to his team, but the technical reality of the 80 minutes. Technically, Toulouse were the better team. Technically, Wasps were never great.

Shaun Edwards and Gatland delivered power and pace in excess of anything seen before in the English club game. Fierce in defence, they tore teams to pieces with turned-over possession. They raged at contact, metamorphosing the sport into a series of clattering contacts and high-speed chases where they were best equipped to win. It was a thrilling period for club rugby because it appeared that they were rewriting the rules of the code. There was something of the revolutionary in the way Edwards and Gatland dismissed the eternal verities of the game. Of all those truths, none were bigger and more religiously defended than the belief that forwards win games, that to win trophies you had to win set-pieces.

Wasps had a superb collection of individuals up front but as a collectif there was always something lacking. That something was a lineout. Trevor Leota was a mesmeric force for a few years but was rarely becalmed long enough to hit his target. Wasps became Europe’s finest despite, not because of, their set-piece. But the revolution did not so much run out of steam, rather others accepted the demands of the age and matched Wasps in areas where they had previously rampaged unchallenged. Sale clenched their fists last season and physically eclipsed them, leaving Wasps with little to fall back on, other than the basics of the game that had been downgraded in their glory years.

Which brings us back to Toulouse and that final in 2004. The French team have been the most successful in Europe because of several factors: a continuity provided by a coach in Guy Novès who epitomises the corps d’esprit of the club; a bank balance that enables them to sign the best talent; and a commitment to the old Toulouse way of playing. It needed every ounce of effort on home turf to prevent Toulouse winning their second straight title, and they were to regain the title in 2005 against Stade Français in Edinburgh. That old way remains undiminished by the fashions of the day. It is a matter of playing with the ball in the air. Keep it off the ground and defences cannot control the pace of the game. At their finest, Toulouse have been Europe’s dominant force because they have maintained the capability to keep the ball alive through the majesty of Yannick Jauzion and his backs or the power of Fabien Pelous’s pack.

It is the comfort of forwards with the ball that Wasps lacked. They carried powerfully but individually, shades of league evident. Toulouse were quintessential union. Catch a lineout, smuggle the ball through several pairs of forwards’ hands and turn a trundle into an unstoppable forward surge. Great teams should be able to play it tight and loose in a way Wasps could not. But that was the past. Their present and future looks like a reversion to the tight-knit intricacies with which Toulouse almost beat them.

It is not Josh Lewsey, Tom Voyce, Ayoola Erinle or the belligerent backs of recent years calling the tunes. It is not the currently recovering Dallaglio or Joe Worsley, but the front five that takes Wasps to Bristol as the only team with a 100% winning start to the season. The power is generated through the tight. Raphaël Ibanez is not infallible but when he hits his jumper, Wasps hit their straps. Simon Shaw revels in his role, rumbling closer to his forwards than he has for a few years. Tom Palmer has added an explosive edge alongside him, while Ibanez batters his way upfield. Big men and little offloads have proved irresistible.

Harlequins were overwhelmed by this new-look, old-fashioned Wasps effort. To emphasise the change in the way Wasps play, nobody has made a deeper impression than props Tim Payne and Peter Bracken. There are hints of Toulouse in the way they are running, linking and slipping passes away. Payne looks England material and Bracken is a shoo-in for Ireland on this form.

It will require all the experience of a mature pack of wily Bristolians to halt their progress this afternoon. By taking a few technical steps into the old ways, Wasps have reinvigorated their charge into the future.

Bristol v Wasps, today, 3pm