Vannes, Montauban, Perpignan and French rugby’s play-off problem

The FFR has ditched the promotion-relegation match between the losing third-tier Nationale finalist and 15th-placed side in the ProD2. The LNR should follow their lead and cut the ProD2-Top 14 ‘access match’. In fact, the whole play-off system below the Top 14 needs a rethink

French rugby is proud of its open pyramid structure that allows for any side to — in theory — dream an impossibly big dream. It takes patience and effort and luck and pots of money; and more patience, and more effort and more luck and more money, but the Bouclier de Brennus is not totally out of reach of any French club.

In recent seasons, however, without apparently seeming to, the doors to the upper echelons have slowly closed. Now, however, they’re promising to open again — and we should help smash them open.

Consider ProD2 leaders Vannes. They have won 21 and drawn one of their 25 matches to date. They have 99 league points; are 18 clear of nearest rivals Colomiers, have 28 more than third-placed Valence-Romans, and are 32 ahead of Oyonnax, in the sixth and final play-off spot. 

They have won their last 10 and at their current rate will better Lyon’s ProD2 record of 117 league points, set in 2016. 

Vannes’ run-in features one match — at Provence in the 29th round — against a current top-six side, and none against the trio of clubs that have beaten them so far this season. They’re on track to equal or beat Lyon’s mark of 25 wins and smash through the 1,000 match-points barrier.

They are the textbook definition of runaway leaders. Yet, unlike Lyon a decade ago, a return to the Top 14 remains uncertain. Beyond even the maths of it. Despite being streets ahead of their rivals — they have already qualified for the play-off semi-finals — they cannot tell prospective new recruits whether they will be in the Top 14 or ProD2 next season. 

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Their whole season must be risked and may be lost on one turn of a single match, one bounce of a ball because of the post-season play-off system that has been in place since 2018. 

That season saw the post-season play-off system for the ProD2 altered to match the format of the Top 14. Until then, the team that finished top of the second-tier division were guaranteed promotion. Second through to sixth entering a play-off for the second promotion spot, with the bottom two in the Top 14 dropping down.

Which brings us to last season’s ProD2 champions. Not even the most die-hard fan expected Montauban to win promotion to the Top 14 in 2025.

They, arguably, shouldn’t even have been in promotion contention. After all, they barely escaped slipping into the third-tier Nationale the previous season, surviving a promotion-relegation play-off against third-tier side Narbonne by a single point.

But Montauban finished sixth and qualified for the title play-offs at the end of a single campaign under new boss Sebastien Tillous-Borde. They were still 21 points adrift of first-placed Grenoble. 

Enter the play-offs. Montauban won at Colomiers, who had finished the regular season third, nine points ahead of the eventual champions. And then at Brive, who had dropped to second on the final weekend — 17 points clear of Tillous-Borde’s side.

Montauban completed the post-season surprise triptych by upsetting three-in-a-row finalists Grenoble at Stade Ernest Wallon to become the first team to lift the ProD2 shield after finishing in the last of the play-off places. 

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This is all very sports romantic, an against-the-odds run to glory in the face of apparently insurmountable odds. But it exposes one of three serious flaws in the current set-up of France’s sacred rugby pyramid, notwithstanding Montauban’s good fortune . One that’s being repeated down the levels.

In getting to the title play-offs, a season after being minutes from dropping to the Nationale, Montauban had overachieved. They maxxed out by becoming the first side to win the ProD2 title after finishing sixth.  

Promotion hadn’t been part of their planning. It was barely a fever dream. They were looking to challenge a couple of campaigns down the line after a period of consolidation and squad development. 

As a result, they were undercooked in terms of preparation, budget or personnel.

What followed this season was predictable. With six rounds of the campaign left, Montauban have seven league points, 16 less than 13th-placed Perpignan, and 37 behind Bayonne, in 12th. 

They have leaked 969 match points in 20 rounds, and are on course to bust Agen’s season record of 1,101, at the end of a horror 2020/21 campaign when they notched just two losing bonus points.

Top 14 survival was always a million-to-one chance. In real life, million-to-one chances don’t come off nine times out of 10. This one was never going to.

Of the sides that finished last season above Montauban in the ProD2, three — top two Grenoble and Brive, and fourth-place finishers Provence, ambitious sides all — were demonstrably better placed in terms of set-up, budget, and squad, to cope with the additional demands of Top 14 rugby.

Also since 2018, the losing ProD2 finalist has had to play one more match, at home against the side that finished 13th in the Top 14, for the right to be in the French top-flight the following season.

Grenoble, struggling this season, have hosted and lost the past three promotion-relegation play-offs.

It took Top 14 sides a couple of seasons — the first three play-offs were won by the ProD2 side — but sides in the first division at the wrong end season as the end of the campaign neared realised that this was a game to prepare for rather than shy away from. 

Montpellier gambled on this in their troubled 2023-24 season, holding players in reserve to keep them sharp for the winner-takes-all match. 

Perpignan followed that lead last time out. “Of course we have it in mind, we’re not kidding ourselves,” then-manager Franck Azema had snapped at journalists in May 2025, when asked about the prospect that his side would fill the Top 14 half of the draw in the ‘access match’ the following month.

After kicking off the current season with 11 defeats in a row, the Catalan side — since December under a new set-up headed by former France coach Laurent Labit — are deep in the weeds of planning for their third Top 14 survival match in four campaigns.

They have picked up 23 league points in 20 Top 14 matches, to sit in the relegation play-off place 21 points adrift of 12th-placed Bayonne. 

As long ago as January, finishing 13th — and its unearned extra chance to stay up — was the key goal at Stade Aime Giral. “We have to win our home games to secure 13th place,” second row Mathieu Tanguy told Midi Olympique.

Montauban, whose only win of the season to date was at home to Perpignan on October 25, aren’t going to overtake Perpignan in the six matches remaining, so Labit already has the luxury of prepping his side for a 27th domestic match, with — after losing their Challenge Cup round-of-16 match at Montpellier — a couple of weekends off in the diary.

ProD2 sides don’t have that luxury. The race to the final, to promotion, doesn’t allow for R&R. The promotion-relegation play-off remains a match to avoid that follows a week after they have come off second best in a final they all really wanted to win.

A side’s league position at the end of a 26- or 30-match season is a fair and smoothed-out reflection of their performance compared to the other teams in that league. 

The FFR has decided to stop the chimera promotion-relegation play-off between the Nationale and the ProD2 after two seasons. 

A side that has done well enough to earn promotion deserves their shot. Let’s go back to the days when they had the chance to plan for it, rather than make them play for the privilege against a side that’s done badly enough to face relegation.

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