Top 14 talking points: Doubting Thomas unloads on 45-second kick rule
Toulouse’s Thomas Ramos weighs in on the shortened time limit for penalties and conversions, the honest reaction of Jean-Noël Spitzer after Vannes were bullied off the ball by Montpellier, La Rochelle’s new teenage star ... and the always remarkable Jiuta Wainiqolo
Toulouse’s Thomas Ramos weighs in on the shortened time limit for penalties and conversions, the honest reaction of Jean-Noël Spitzer after Vannes were bullied off the ball by Montpellier, La Rochelle’s new teenage star ... and the always remarkable Jiuta Wainiqolo
Two matches into the 2026/27 Top 14 season, and three teams remain unbeaten, while three more have yet to record a victory.
Those unbeaten sides? Pau, Lyon, and La Rochelle.
The winless ones? Toulon, Vannes, and Racing 92.
READ ALSO: Top 14 round-up: Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle earn hard-fought win over Toulon
On a weekend of 60 tries in the French top-flight – Pau weighed in with 10 in their demolition of Bayonne, while Lyon and Toulouse both ran in eight – here are the results.
And here’s the second-weekend table.
And here’s what the players and coaches thought. After a brief pause for the top five tries of the weekend.
Clermont 25 - 16 Stade Francais
“We should have taken the attacking bonus point,” Clermont manager Christophe Urios said after his side’s home win over Stade Francais. “I thought we were very strong – we played a good match. We struggled in the set piece in the first half, but we sorted that out in the second. They only caused us problems because of our mistakes.”
For the second week in a row, Clermont owed a huge debt to their replacements, who – guided by the excellent Harry Plummer – helped them pull away after going into the break 3-6 down (it was that sort of first half).
Stade’s Paul Abadie summed up the 80 minutes at Marcel Michelin pretty well. “We made quite a few mistakes and lacked a bit of clinical finishing. They had their share too,” he told broadcaster Canal Plus in the immediate aftermath of the match.
“We got close to their line several times, but we couldn’t convert our chances – in away matches like this, against big teams like that, when you don’t score when the chance arises, you end up paying the price.
But he refused to blame early season cobwebs: “We’re not putting this down to the start of the season. We’re doing well in training; we’re working hard. We thought we could pull off a result here; unfortunately, we weren’t far off.
“It’s only the start of the league season. We’ve got a big match in Bordeaux next week to make up for this. We’re still very positive and optimistic about what lies ahead.”
Pau 70 - 28 Bayonne
Bayonne’s Laurent Travers was left scratching his head after Yohan Orabe’s fourth-minute red card following an aerial challenge that left Theo Attissogbe needing treatment.
“Both players went for the ball, and one of them gets a red card,” he fumed afterwards. “That means I should tell my fullback not to go for the ball, anymore. Both players came to attack the ball, and they did it properly. But one goes higher, and that created the tipping motion.”
There was disagreement between managers over who arrived later – Travers said Attissogbe, Pau’s Sebastien Piqueronies said Orabe. Either way, it was moot. Orabe saw red, Attissogbe recovered to score two of Pau’s 10 against 14 – and temporarily 13.
Fabien Brau-Boirie, too, was imperious in midfield on his return to action after injury.
“It was a solid performance,” Piqueronies said of the 10-converted-try win – Joe Simmonds gets a mention later. “Not very well structured, but serious. It's very good to get five points. But also, you have to accept my high standards, because given our ambitions, I know we'll have to be better to be able to beat teams with 15 men, and perhaps teams that are a bit more ferocious.”
Perpignan 43 - 29 Castres
Last season, Castres boss Xavier Sadourny routinely tried to find the positives in his side’s performances, even in defeat. And there were enough of them.
This season, fake positive Xavier Sadourny has gone. Replaced by a manager speaking his mind in public. “I’m disappointed and angry,” he told journalists after the defeat in Perpignan – an early season match Castres had evidently targeted.
“We failed to implement everything we’d planned strategically. We strayed from our game plan too quickly – the framework we’ve been trying to put in place for some time now.”
Was he being a bit harsh? Having been 24-8 down after half an hour and 31-15 behind after 50 minutes, they got to within two just after the hour, before two Peceli Yato scores in the last 10 minutes took the Catalan side out of reach.
It’s the second week in a row that Perpignan’s bench have changed the game. “Our substitutes were decisive,” manager Laurent Labit said. “For Peceli, it’s no surprise: he’s our X-factor up front. But I really liked Posolo’s return … very involved, very committed.”
Definitely committed.
Along with Clermont, Perpignan have, arguably, best caught the secret of French rugby’s reduced substitutions. “With this coaching change, matches will inevitably be decided in the last 20 minutes,” Labit said.
And he hinted at further evolution to come from the Catalan side: “We want to find the best formula to win, depending on our opponents but also on our players. Some can start matches and last a very long time, while others have more limited stamina but can have a real impact when they come on. For now, that’s what we have, but perhaps it will change in a few weeks…”
But let’s leave the last word on Perpignan-Castres to players experiencing an Aime-Giral full house for the first time.
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Racing 92 31 - 48 Lyon
Eight of Lyon’s 16 linebreaks in Creteil on Saturday were made by one player – the remarkable Jiuta Wainiqolo, who also scored twice to get his try-stats moving on his first outing of the season, and made four of Lyon’s six tries he didn’t score.
Gabin Lorre and Arthur Mathiron, who each crossed the tryline, were equally responsible for another six of the visitors’ linebreaks.
Despite the bonus-point victory on the road, despite scoring nearly 50 points away from home, despite the joy of having Wainiqolo running with you rather than at you, flanker Dylan Cretin reckons Lyon have room for improvement. “We can definitely optimise our first half more. We made two or three mistakes that put us back in our own half when we were managing the game quite well.
“But it’s only the second game of the season and we weren't expecting to play a perfect match.”
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Racing boss Patrice Collazo conceded that his squad have not been up to scratch this season. “We’re not playing at our true level,” he said. “We’re not at the level we were at last season. Individually, some players aren’t performing at their best.
“But perhaps the coaching staff haven’t quite reached that level yet either. Our team unit isn’t compact enough. We’re not yet cohesive as a team, even though that used to be our strength.”
That could be considered an understatement. Racing have shipped 18 tries and 112 points in their two matches to date. What he said next, however, is inarguable.
“Now, we’re going to have to restart the machine under pressure … because otherwise the gaps will get wider.
“But in a way, that’s typical of us. Comfort isn’t something that suits us or that we’re particularly good at handling. Now, we’re going to have to dig deep.
“We’re going to be under a lot of pressure. Now, everyone's going to be thinking, ‘We can beat Racing’.”
Vannes 12 - 26 Montpellier
It’s hard, bordering on impossible, to win a Top 14 rugby match when your scrum is crumbling, and your lineout is under assault. Promoted Vannes were sprightly and tenacious and played some decent rugby on their top-flight return to Stade de la Rabine.
Fullback Paul Surano, centre Ray Nu’u, backrow Ioane Iashahashvili all caught the eye for the home side.
But, after their home defeat against Pau last weekend, last season’s finalists Montpellier were in no mood to hold back. Something their forwards made painfully clear.
They did Montpellier things. It was direct and not pretty and effective. As Joan Caudullo would, no doubt, point out to anyone who criticises the gamplan, there are no extra points for artistic impression in rugby.
“I’m not disappointed because we came up against a stronger team, and at no point did you feel you were going to win this match,” Vannes’ honest Jean-Noël Spitzer, said afterwards. “Obviously, the scrum was a huge factor and made the match unplayable.”
Caudullo was most pleased with the four points away from home, after dropping last week’s match, but added: “We have to do better if we want to be competitive, because it’s going to get physically demanding at some point.”
That sounds a lot like a warning.
Toulon 20 - 21 La Rochelle
Valetin Bouju, 18, wasn’t the only player making his Top 14 debut at the weekend – 19-year-old fly-half Mathis Galeazzi finished the match for Lyon, and prop Amir Hattouma, also 19, played the final 15 minutes for Bordeaux at Toulouse on Sunday.
As did, for the record 21-year-old second row Gagui Margvelashvili, who came on for Romain Taofifenua during their defeat at ‘home’ against Lyon.
But the pressure was on Bouju. In the absence of injured duo Nolann Le Garrec and Thomas Berjon, and with Ronan O’Gara selecting a 7-1 bench including no spare nine, he was asked to fly without a safety net at Stade Mayol.
And, let’s be honest, Bouju did just that. He went up against Baptiste Serin and the Toulon monsters for 80 full-on minutes, battled – and beat – repeated cramp, and didn’t look out of his depth as La Rochelle shocked an underperforming Toulon on home turf. And then he toured the pitch while being interviewed on Canal Plus
“Honestly... Hats off!” was all backs coach Remi Tales said afterwards. “He was especially strong mentally. He made mistakes, which is normal, he felt the pressure, but he remained calm. After each error, he produced a positive play. Now, he needs to recover because between the adrenaline, the pressure of the first match, and the match he played, he’s very tired.”
Bouju was as calm in front of the camera as he was in front of the hostile crowd. “When you play your first Top 14 match, you want to win it, to make it a good memory. Playing at Mayol, a legendary stadium, was truly a dream come true.
“When I learned I was going to start, I was really excited. And when I realised there wasn’t another scrum-half on the bench, that I was going to have to play 80 minutes, or at least last as long as possible, I thought to myself it was going to be a long haul.”
After that baptism, this Top 14 rugby lark is going to be a breeze.
As for Toulon, Mateo Garcia told journalists: “Our biggest enemy was ourselves. We made too many mistakes. We don’t hold onto the ball enough, and that’s what lead to the final result.
“We were pushed around in the rucks all game, and we couldn’t get clean ball.
We know what we need to work on at the start of the season. We ended up losing our structure because of the rucks and the lost balls. We’re going to make sure this is the last match of the season where we show this side of us.”
Toulouse 48 - 12 Bordeaux
Thomas Ramos isn’t a fan of French rugby’s new 45-second time limit for penalties and conversions. After missing three – admittedly tricky – first-half shots at goal, he handed kicking duties over to Romain Ntamack … who knocked over four out of five.
“A minute for conversions was good,” Ramos told Canal Plus after the whistle. “[But], I’m not going to make excuses – when you kick zero out of three, you have to leave the kicking tee aside.”
He added: “It would be good if, on decisions like this, players were involved in the discussions. If we had been asked, I think most of us would vote for one minute.”
It’s early and the sample is relatively small, but Ramos is not the only kicker to have a lower success rate off the tee so far this season – Toulon’s Melvyn Jaminet and La Rochelle’s Antoine Hastoy are running well below their 80 percent career average.
On the other hand, Pau’s Joe Simmonds, whose set-up and pre-kick routine is pretty speedy, landed 10 out of 10 against Bayonne this weekend. And Ntamack, too, was solid enough. So, maybe it’s just a case of adapting to a new normal, Thomas?
Back to the match – this bit might run on – “This is the response we were all waiting for,” Toulouse forwards coach Jean Bouilhou said after his side’s eight-try home-crowd-rousing performance. “We were keen to see a complete performance from our players after a shortened summer preparation.
“They brought pace and a lot of intensity to match Bordeaux’s speed, and I liked how few handling errors they made in attack. Every aspect of the game worked well.”
Centre Kalvin Gourges added: “It was the night to kick off our season, and it went pretty well. After our disastrous second half in La Rochelle, we wanted to play consistently for the full 80 minutes.
“We used that loss to bring even more aggression and energy to the game. In particular, we recovered a lot of balls on turnovers by forcing them to fumble in contact.
“We needed to play, enjoy ourselves, and have fun on the field.”
Unsurprisingly, emotions were rather less positive on the Bordeaux side of the post-match press conference. “We were not mentally prepared for the first half, even though we started well, then we sank into a hole,” Marko Gazotti admitted.
Looking for small consolations on a night of few, he added: “We tried to hold our heads high. We tried to tell ourselves we couldn’t let ourselves be humiliated here and that we had to defend our jersey to avoid conceding 80 points.
“I think it was 12-12 in the second half. At least we managed to do that.”
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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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