Top 14 talking points: all over bar the play-off shouting
Who reached the Top 14 play-offs, who didn't, what they said, and what it means…
The 2025/26 Top 14 season kicked off with Stade Francais beating promoted Montauban 47-24 at Stade Jean Bouin on the first Saturday of September.
Fast-forward through 26 domestic rounds – fans of a number of clubs in the lower reaches would be quite happy to do so – and Montauban have been comprehensively slapped back into the ProD2, to be replaced next season by a better-prepared Vannes.
Stade Francais, meanwhile, after a torrid 2024/25 season, soared back into a top six that bears little resemblance to that of the previous campaign. Five of this season’s play-off teams weren’t involved in the post-season in 24/25.
There’s a fair amount of annual top-six fluidity in the French game, but near clearouts like this are rare.
The final table has as much to say about the performances of several sides last season – including Stade Francais, Racing 92, and La Rochelle – as it does about those of, say, Clermont, Bordeaux, and Toulon this time around.
Next season’s top six will look different again.
Basic maths gets pundits, commentators and supporters alike every time. Depending on who you ask, 10 or 11 teams will have legitimate play-off ambitions heading into a season. They won’t all fit into six play-off places. Every season, more than one big-beast team will miss out. Every season, more than one player will be ‘gutted’ – this year, it was Louis Bielle-Biarrey. Though he’s now officially free to play for France in New Zealand, Australia and Japan this summer…
Similarly, the Top 14 has eight Champions Cup qualification spots – 10 or 11 doesn’t go there, either. This season’s semi-finalists Toulon, and Castres, who dumped out Munster on a run to the round of 16, are in the draw for the 26/27 Challenge Cup, alongside Lyon, Bayonne, promoted Vannes, and one of Perpignan or Provence.
Anyway, here are the results from the final round of matches – which all kicked off at the same time.
And here is the final table. Top six into the play-offs for the Bouclier de Brennus; top eight into next season’s Champions Cup, and we’ve already identified all-but one team entering the Challenge Cup draw; bottom side Montauban are relegated – ProD2 champions Vannes promoted to replace them; 13th-placed Perpignan to play a promotion-relegation match against ProD2 losers Perpignan.
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And – here, finally – are the key talking points from the final round of the regular Top 14 season.
La Rochelle 27 - 22 Stade Francais
Afterwards, a delighted – and relieved – Ronan O’Gara was able to smilingly admit that his pep talk to his players leading up to Saturday night’s match was far from St Crispin’s Day standards.
“I tried to explain the context and the importance of getting five points. I told the players, ‘Racing will win and Bordeaux will beat Clermont, and it’s going to be difficult for us to pick up a bonus-point win’.
“When you put something like that into the players’ heads, telling them a four-point win would be awful…”
At 7-12 down at half-time and then 10-19 with half-an-hour left, and with Bordeaux looking dead certs to win at Chaban Delmas, La Rochelle’s chances looked increasingly remote. But then, Clermont hit back – Bordeaux’s 24-14 halftime lead had melted away by the hour. Seven minutes later, the visitors were a converted try up; with five minutes left, the hosts equalised… and then, in the 78th-minute, Harry Plummer dropped Clermont to victory.
READ ALSO O’Gara turns it around as La Rochelle seal unlikely play-off spot
Somehow, what was happening nearly 200km away – the Miracle of Bordeaux, for La Rochelle fans – filtered down onto the pitch. “It gives us a bit more energy and a greater desire to win,” Ihaia West insisted.
Semi Lagivala scored the try that put La Rochelle ahead for the first time in the second half, with 10 minutes or so left on the clock. And, two minutes from time, a whole-team maul crossed Stade’s line for the final time.
“At halftime, I told the players that if this was our last match of the season at Deflandre, we’d have regrets. I asked for precision and aggression. We’ve been given another week.
“After all the crap we’ve been through, we’re in the top six. It’s miraculous to have qualified — it’s an important victory for the club. Now, anything is possible.
“I’m not relieved, that’s for the weak. Many thought we were crazy to believe we could qualify. But I have a united group. And, of course, we needed a miracle – I’m grateful for that.”
Bordeaux 31 - 34 Clermont
“We saw the blow coming,” Bordeaux president Laurent Marti told TV7’s Top Rugby show this week. “We won narrowly in Bayonne, we struggled to beat Perpignan, we could see we were struggling.”
He went on: “As soon as the Champions Cup started, we felt the players, the staff – I’d say the whole club – were completely immersed in it, totally excited. Because it’s a magical competition. We didn’t want to let it slip away. So, indirectly, we were perhaps a little too focused on the Champions Cup.”
There had been noticeable dips in Bordeaux performances between Champions Cup games, leaving them in serious danger of not qualifying for the Top 14 play-offs. Part of the problem is squad depth. Cover players have struggled to do their jobs.
This is not new. “It’s unfortunate we always have to field the same players to get a decent performance,” defence coach Christophe Laussucq said after the win over Perpignan that Marti referenced on TV7. “We’re too reliant on certain guys, which is worrying.”
And Jalibert admitted before the Champions Cup final in Bilbao: “I don’t think we’ve brought all the elements to the table to make games easier for ourselves [in the Top 14].
“It took 50 to 55 minutes for us to get into the game at Bayonne, and we got a fright against Perpignan. We needed a coaching adjustment to turn things around, and even then, the end of the match was tough.
“But we know we can step up our game in high-stakes, do-or-die matches — we did it against Toulouse and Bath.”
The inescapable truth is Bordeaux finally ran out of puff at the wrong moment and the euphoria of that Champions Cup final win masked the problem. But it’s out in the open now. Marti said this week: “Saturday night and Sunday were complicated. But, as we always do, I immediately get back to work: what can we improve, how are we going to do it? I want to get straight to work to improve the situation.”
He has a problem, though. The salary cap. According to official LNR figures, Bordeaux are skirting terribly close to it, having agreed extensions relatively recently for star cohort Matthieu Jalibert, Yoram Moefana, Nicolas Depoortere, Romain Buros, Damian Penaud and Maxime Lucu.
And then there’s this. Winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey’s current contract runs out at the end of the 2026/27 Top 14 season. That means, from July 1 this year – aka not long from now – other clubs are allowed to approach him with a contract offer if he hasn’t signed a new one.
READ ALSO Bordeaux need to seal deal for Louis
There is no suggestion Bielle-Biarrey wants to leave Bordeaux. Quite the opposite, in fact, and talks are under way – this piece may age badly very quickly. But there’s no denying his stock has exploded since he last put pen to paper and Marti doesn’t have much financial room for manoeuvre right now.
This may be why talk of a stint with France sevens for LA 2028 is suddenly front and centre. A salary cap credit increase equivalent to the one that Toulouse received when Antoine Dupont joined the sevens set-up for the Paris games might give Bordeaux enough financial headroom to make a staggered contract offer LBB can’t refuse.
Finally, a word from a philosophical Clermont boss Christophe Urios after victory in Bordeaux turned out to be not quite enough to reach the top six. “Naturally, there’s disappointment, frustration, and a touch of sadness,” he said. “All that for nothing... But hey, we knew it.
“We had the game plan before the match: we had to win here, and even if we did, our fate wasn’t entirely in our own hands. It puts the defeat against Racing 92 into perspective, something we still can’t explain. Why did we play like that? That’s when we lost our way this season.
“Today, I just have to congratulate the guys who managed to regroup, because it wasn’t easy. And, frankly, we played an incredible match today. Right now, we#re reeling from the disappointment. But at the same time, if we look beyond the immediate future, it bodes well for next season.”
Lyon 25 - 28 Montpellier
“I’m quitting at the end of the season!” Montpellier’s manager Joan Caudullo joked after his side won at Lyon to claim second in the Top 14 and a bye to the semi-finals in Marseille – they will face the winner of Stade Francais-La Rochelle on June 20.
That was a joke. What followed wasn’t. Challenge Cup winners Montpellier’s run to the Top 14 semi-finals – they have won 22 of their last 25 matches – has been somewhat overshadowed in recent days by speculation over the future of 78-year-old club president Mohed Altrad, whose billions are vital to the club’s prospects.
Regional newspaper Midi Libre suggested on Sunday he was about to hand over the reins this summer.
He’d already warned in an interview with Rugbyrama that professional rugby in Montpellier depended – too much – on him. That wasn’t ego. It was merely a comment on the club’s financial situation.
Midi Libre’s article prompted this response from Altrad: “I’m not immortal because I’m a human being and I don’t see a successor – that’s all I said.
“Yes, I’ll be here in September. I’m not standing down. I know I’m not young, but I’m alive. As long as I’m able to manage this club, I’ll be here, even though it costs between €10million and €12million every year.”
Back to Caudullo, who insisted he was reasonably confident his players could earn themselves a much-needed week off after 12 unbroken weeks of rugby. “I didn’t see us getting back to work on Monday,” he said. “I thought it would be tough to head to Marseille after a 13th consecutive match, even though we have been able to rotate the roster across the Challenge Cup and the Top 14.
“We took a gamble, and it paid off. Hats off to the medical staff and the strength and conditioning coaches.”
Racing 92 31 - 20 Toulouse
Racing coach Patrice Collazo offered up a blueprint PSA for beating Toulouse after doing just that to claim fifth and return to the Top 14 play-offs after a blank 2024/25 campaign.
“Against Toulouse, you absolutely mustn’t just sit back and watch them play. You have to attack their attack, prevent them from settling in, and force turnovers,” he said. “That’s what we managed to do in the second half.”
This was, by no means, a full-bore Toulouse. Ugo Mola has his eyes firmly on retaining the Brennus, and is managing his squad, so it was without a not-fully-fit Antoine Dupont and Paul Graou; while Romain Ntamack, Santiago Chocobares, Thibaud Flament and Manny Meafou were rested, and Thomas Ramos and Jack Willis were on the bench. Young hooker Thomas Lacombre started at six, and tighthead prop Joel Merkler was a second row replacement. Even so, it was a talented makeshift 23 that travelled to La Defense Arena and Collazo’s gameplan is easier explained than done.
If Blair Kinghorn, at fly-half, had landed his conversions the game might have turned into a different story – he missed all four, including one with 10 minutes left that would have given the visitors the lead. We’ll never know.
Not that Mola was bothered. Top spot was secure. Toulouse get a weekend off and will face the winners of Pau-Racing on June 19. “We’ve qualified,” he said. “We’re delighted to be directly in the semi-finals. Now, we’re going to work even harder on what we saw tonight against Racing, who we could very well face again in two weeks. And if it’s Pau, it will be just as tough, because they’re having a remarkable season.”
For Collazo and Racing: “We’re going to Pau. If it had been Stade Francais, we would have simply crossed the ring road. It would have been simpler logistically and less expensive. But it’s Pau, and that’s fine.
“We’ll be playing in front of a packed stadium. I often faced Pau in the Pro D2 playoffs when I was at La Rochelle. I have some good and bad memories there. Pau are having a remarkable season – finishing fourth is no accident. They did what it took to get there. So we’ll go there with a lot of humility, but above all with tremendous determination and desire.”
Pau 71 - 35 Montauban
Thirteen out of thirteen at home. Pau maintained their unbeaten record at Stade du Hameau with a straightforward and utterly predictable 11-try final-day win over bottom-of-the-table Montauban.
Coach Sebastien Piqueronies could even rotate his squad somewhat with more testing challenges in mind – 20-year-old Australian flanker Xander Iosefo, on his Top 14 debut, impressed at the weekend.
“In my recent team selections, there were players who had been training very well and deserved to play, but who weren’t picked,” the boss explained. “I wanted them to be able to express themselves and show you that they are more than capable of competing at the level of a well-oiled Section Paloise team.
“The real progress this season is having an even more cohesive group than last year.”
They’ll need that, because there’s some bad news for Pau as they head into their first Top 14 play-off phase. Fullback Jack Maddocks is reportedly out with a shoulder injury.
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As for Montauban, five tries on their last Top 14 outing should not be ignored. In attack they were decent. “We did a good job offensively,” manager Sebastien Tillous-Borde said. “We had devised a system that we stuck to – because we had identified things we could try against Pau that could work.”
Conceding another 71 points – taking their domestic points against tally this season to a whopping 1,349 – was, he thought, ‘a bit harsh’. Which, technically, it is. Their points conceded column on the road is 771 in 13 matches at an average of just over 59.
And he was determined to look to the positives. “This season has allowed us to aim higher. It’s been a year of learning at every level.” We’ll see how that works out back in the ProD2 next season, with a sackful of prospects blooded in the Top 14.
Bayonne 52 - 7 Perpignan
It finally happened. Bayonne broke their winning duck at Stade Jean Dauger in 2026. There hasn’t been much to be positive about at the Basque club in the second half of the season, so it’s a lifebuoy plus-note to grab on to.
As head coach Gerard Fraser said, as he gave his side’s campaign a questionably generous four out of 10 rating: “Overall, we’re disappointed with our league position, but we’re where we should be.
“I’ve known this group for four years, I know the club, I know our strengths and where we can go, if we’re on the same page. We have room for improvement.”
But this match wasn’t really about Bayonne. Their season has been a dead rubber for some time. For Perpignan, however, it was another promotion-relegation play-off prep outing – and the young selection showed it.
Philippe Saint-Andre, coach of Perpignan’s opponents Provence, put it succinctly after watching his side go down fighting to Vannes in Saturday’s ProD2 final: “Perpignan have been preparing for three months – we’ll have five days.”
After their comeback win at home to Castres in the penultimate round of the season, manager Laurent Labit – who has recently signed a contract extension to remain in charge at Aime Giral until June 2030 – had said: “Until now, I had my team [for the promotion-relegation play-off] in mind. That’s no longer the case. I had some pretty firm ideas about certain players, but this match will prompt reflection on who should start, who can come on. Some will have a chance to prove themselves in Bayonne.
“The best players will play. Because survival is at stake, and that’s more important than the fate of any individual.”
And midweek, he told journalists: “We have a crucial match to prepare for. I split the group in two to keep some players training in Perpignan, focused on this big match, but those on the pitch in Bayonne must also prepare for this game, in a different way.”
READ ALSO Vannes, Montauban, Perpignan and French rugby’s play-off problem
It’s not immediately clear what he learned from the loss at Bayonne for the match at Provence. For further in the future, yes, with 18-year-old centre Diego Mascarenc, and the trio of debutants – winger Simon Sol, backrow Simon Taty, and second-row Thomas Serezat – all playing reasonably well, but for this Sunday?
One of those in Bayonne, captain Matteo Le Corvec, said the play-off game couldn’t come too soon: “We can’t wait to get going… and finish this season strong,” he said. “Because it's been exhausting. It’s worn us all out, frankly. I’m looking forward to us enjoying these last moments together, with the guys who will be leaving soon. Enjoying it all together. Having a good game, winning. And, then, moving on to the next season.”
Castres 38 - 21 Toulon
The other null match of the final weekend of the regular Top 14 season, with neither hosts Castres or visitors Toulon in danger of troubling the play-off, Champions Cup, or relegation places.
But, the win mattered to the home side, as it broke a campaign-wrecking late-season six-match losing run, an unbroken straw to clutch for a side that had been drowning.
Manager Xavier Sadourny was honest in his post-match analysis: “There were some impressive moments, certainly, but it won’t be remembered as a genuinely high-quality game – though at least we showed commitment when it mattered.
“Beyond the performance, a win was important. And we did. Now we can analyse everything a bit and, above all, focus on the restart and next year.”
Honestly, a restart was all that was left for both sides at Stade Pierre Fabre – on a night in which 38-year-old Leone Nakarawa, in his last game for Castres, showed a lot of younger players how it should be done.
Looking for insightful French rugby content from someone who really knows the state of the game? My name is James Harrington. I’m a France-based freelance sports journalist, and I write mostly about French club and international rugby.
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You can read my French rugby column in The Rugby Paper every Sunday. I round-up Top 14, Champions and Challenge Cup and international action for the Irish Examiner, as well as for Rugbypass. I have also done bits for Rugby World, and cover the HSBC SVNS for svns.com
