Big matches, big crowds, and big results on the 21st weekend of the Top 14 campaign
Five rounds of the regular Top 14 season remain – and fault lines are developing in the table as we enter the bird-in-the-hand phase of the campaign.
Points in the bag are, increasingly, more useful now than points in potential; actual position sometimes more valuable than potential position.
Even so, some sides – looking at you, Racing 92, Bordeaux, and La Rochelle – have more difficult run-ins, and while the top-six positions they hold are theirs to lose, it’s not entirely outlandish to ask whether it could happen.
Results
Some big results this weekend. A much-changed Toulouse lost by a single point against Toulon in front of 61,984 fans at Marseille’s Velodrome.
Clermont eased their minimum matchday JIFF quota concerns but little else, at Bordeaux, and Castres ended a five-match losing streak in dramatic style at home to La Rochelle.
Here are the scores from the 21st weekend of the 2023/2024 Top 14 season.
Match of the weekend
Castres 25 La Rochelle 24
“We told ourselves before the match that we had to believe in ourselves. The match scenario was easy to read, even before kick-off,” Castres’ centre Adrien Seguret told reporters after his side had ended a five-match losing streak on Saturday.
“We told ourselves we had to stay united and not doubt we could win, beat La Rochelle. [When they scored their] last try, we got together and no one panicked – we knew we were going to have time to get back in front.”
Using Seguret’s logic, there could have been only around 23 people – all of them players wearing blue shirts – out of more than 12,000 at Stade Pierre Fabre not panicking as a nerve-shredder of a match headed to its conclusion.
Hugo Reus converted Jules Favre’s try, La Rochelle’s third and final score, in the 71st minute, taking the score to 24-20 in their favour, four minutes after Julien Dumora had converted Nathanael Hulleu’s touchdown.
It had been that sort of lead-swapping afternoon in darkest Tarn – a day of ifs and buts: if Castres had been less hot-headed, they would have won more easily; if high penalty count La Rochelle had been more disciplined, they could have taken home more than a losing bonus. There was almost no way it was going to be the final act.
It wasn’t. Hulleu popped up again, on the opposite wing, to score what would be the decisive try, six minutes from time. And two crucial won penalties later, Castres gratefully nudged a lineout ball into touch for the points.
Individual performance
Damian Penaud. There’s a certain amount of magpie-ism here, admittedly. Perpignan back row Jaco van Tonder put in yet another god-tier performance as the Catalans beat Lyon 51-20 to continue their staggering run of form, while retiring Sam Whitelock reminded everyone why he’s a genuine legend with a top-drawer performance as Pau got the better of Montpellier.
But it’s impossible not to notice something as eye-catching as Penaud’s performance against his former club. He scored three and made one of their five tries with a spiralling arcing pass for Madosh Tambwe, as Bordeaux put a frankly miserable Clermont to the sword in front of 28,666 fans at Stade Chaban Delmas.
It was one-way traffic pretty much from start to finish. Penaud’s stats (below) were just the start of it.
While we’re magpieing, a nod, too, for team-mate Louis Bielle-Biarrey. Penaud’s hat-trick came in the 79th minute, moments after the 20-year-old France international, on as a replacement, had stopped Baptiste Jauneau scoring the try that would have denied Bordeaux a try-scoring bonus.
Flop
Clermont. Again. Their 26-10 loss at Racing on the other side of the first two knockout rounds of the Challenge Cup had already earned them a first flop title. That was the unfortunate result of an abject performance. Two in as many Top 14 rounds starts to look a lot like … a problem.
There had to be some hope that their dominant quarter-final win over Ulster was something of a turning point. But, it turns out it wasn’t. They didn’t even bother the scoreboard at Bordeaux on Sunday until 10 minutes before the end of the match.
“We wanted to show our true face and it wasn’t that,” distraught young captain Jauneau told reporters. “In the second half we hardly saw the ball and when we got it we didn’t know what to do with it. We have to face the truth … forget this match and switch to the [next] one [on Saturday] against Stade Francais.”
Yes, injuries aren’t helping Clermont – Daniel Bibi Biziwu and Alivereti Raka will be looking for seats in an already busy infirmary following Sunday’s match. And, yes, Christophe Urios rotated his squad after the Ulster success.
But it’s impossible to ignore how easily – for a given Top 14-measured value of ‘easy’ – Bordeaux dominated the match. They were streets ahead on every possible metric. The scoreboard was just the obvious one.
Coaching call
For 40 minutes, Stade Francais were on the wrong end of a shoeing by Bayonne at Stade Jean Bouin.
The Paris club have built their Top 14 challenge on impenetrable defence, to make up for an attack that’s a little crude and the second-worst in the championship, ahead only of Montpellier’s. But, for 40 glorious minutes, if you’re a Bayonne fan, it was ripped to shreds. The Basque side scored three, and had another disallowed, while Stade’s vaunted defence was, apparently, still in the dressing room.
Head coach Karim Ghezal had to act. And, in the 29th minute, he did. He took off prop Sergo Abramishvili, lock Tanginoa Halaifonua, and – on his birthday – backrow Sekou Macalou. It was, clearly, a statement decision. A warning to the squad.
At halftime, 24-7 down the message was rammed home in the Stade Francais dressing room. According to reports, Ghezal made it perfectly clear that he would have swapped out the entire team if he could.
Cue a 21-point reversal of fortune, with Macalou coming back on towards the end to play a key role in winning the ball that led to Giovanni Habel-Kuffner – who had replaced him in the first half, and who will join Bayonne in the summer – scoring the match-winning try in the 82nd minute.
Talking point
We need to talk about Perpignan. Four matches into the season, the Catalans were bottom of the pile, with four defeats, and had shipped 165 points in the process.
Now, 17 rounds later, they’re ninth in the table, on 49 points, one of six sides to have scored 500 points or more in this Top 14 campaign. Only Stade Francais have picked up more league points over the same period.
Franck Azema and his mostly inherited staff will tell anyone who cares to listen that their priority this season was avoiding another relegation play-off. But, and despite the manager’s protestations – “When I hear talk of the play-offs, it’s circus,” he said in an interview with Rugbyrama last week – it’s now impossible to ignore the fact that Perpignan have a shot at the play-off phase, and that they could be involved in the Champions Cup next season.
Azema’s taking careful steps. Perpignan have already signed six players for next season, but he reckons he needs a scrum-half, a back-three player, a dual-sided lock and a back row to round out his squad. Given that Perpignan are, suddenly, looking like a viable Top 14 side again, he should have little trouble finding them.
Quote of the week
“Everyone finds their motivation in their own way. For me, it’s obvious – I hate those bastards on the bench!”
Bordeaux’s Bastien Vergnes-Taillefer as he rallied his side before their match against Clermont on Sunday. Was he making reference to former coaches Christophe Urios, Frederic Charrier, and Julien Laïrle, who are now in charge at Stade Marcel Michelin?
Table
At the wrong end of the log, basement side Oyonnax haven’t won a domestic match since December 29, and clawing back the 12 points to nearest rivals Montpellier is, despite being a theoretical possibility, surely too much of an ask.
Bayonne, Lyon, Clermont and Montpellier, meanwhile, are all scrapping to avoid finishing in 13th place – the relegation play-off spot.
At the top of the pile, the automatic semi-final places for finishing in the top two are Stade Francais’ and Toulouse’s to, erm, lose. Racing 92 look to all-but have a ‘home’ barrage in the bag, though their end-of-season travels and stadium shift add a note of uncertainty.
But every team down to ninth-place Castres, on 49 points, can still dream of the play-offs. Champions Cup places, too – where coaches’, fans’ and pundits’ calculations are at the same time simplified and made more difficult by the continued presence of Clermont in the Challenge Cup equation.
How long that interest lasts remains to be seen – next weekend’s match against Stade Francais could have a huge bearing on Christophe Urios’s planning for the semi-final against Sharks at The Stoop on May 4.
Anyway, here’s the latest Top 14 table. Things are fracturing a little bit.
My name is James Harrington. I’m a freelance sports journalist, writing mostly about French club and international rugby. If, after reading this, you feel the urge to commission me for match previews, reviews, articles, news, features, interviews, live blogs, feel free to contact me
And, please read my weekly French rugby column in The Rugby Paper every Sunday. And I also round-up all the weekend’s Top 14 action on the Irish Examiner website.
James Harrington: Rugby writer and freelance sports journalist 
James Harrington: Rugby writer and freelance sports journalist
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