Oyonnax are down, Montpellier face a survival play-off on June 16, and Toulouse have a semi-final pass in the bag – but there’s still plenty up in the air as the Top 14 season goes to the wire
There was always going to be plenty riding on next weekend’s Top 14 fixtures – the final round of the regular season almost mandates it.
But results this week – along with post-penultimate round league positions have added extra spice to more than one campaign closing match.
Second-placed Stade Francais, for example, will host third-placed Toulon, while fifth-placed La Rochelle entertain Racing 92, in the sixth and final play-off spot.
An ill-timed defeat could have important consequences, especially for the two sides hanging on to the last two positions.
Results
Here are the results from the 25th and penultimate round of the regular Top 14 season.
Just one bonus point this week, despite a couple of big-looking scorelines. Toulon bagged it for running in six tries to Clermont’s one on a weekend that featured 48 tries.
Lucas Tauzin scored the 99th try of the season for Toulouse, the best attacking side in the league this season, with 737 points from their 25 matches to date, in the 79th minute of their epic draw against La Rochelle.
Match of the weekend:
Toulouse 31 – La Rochelle 31
The best for last, what had passed was prologue – however you like your over-dramatic passage of time cliches, there can be little doubt about the match of the weekend.
In the rouge-et-noir corner, Toulouse: newly crowned Champions Cup winners, semi-final pass secured, the best attacking side in the Top 14, with several of their heroes of London missing, and a patched-up squad on show with their academy go-tos called up to the semi-finals of the Espoirs Championship (for the record, the academy side won, and will play neighbours Castres, who beat La Rochelle, in the final) as they put their unbeaten home record on the line for one last time this season.
In the jaune-et-blanc corner, La Rochelle: previous Champions Cup holders, the most miserly defence in the league, with a play-off place in their hands but far from secure, prompting head coach Ronan O’Gara to select his strongest available 23 in the hope of doing to Toulouse what Toulouse had done to them in the Top 14 final last June in ‘pulling off a little robbery’.
For 19 of the 20 final minutes of a breathless, non-stop, eight-try festival at Stadium Toulouse, it looked like they had done it. Jack Nowell and Will Skelton had got them off to a rattling start. Ange Capuozzo and Mathis Castro-Ferreira pulled Toulouse back into a 17-14 lead at the end of the first half – in which the hosts had two tries disallowed.
UJ Seuteni and Lucas Tauzin then swapped early second-half tries. Then Georges-Henri Colombe, heir-apparent to Uini Atonio, bulldozed over on the hour to give the lead back to the visitors. An Antoine Hastoy penalty a few minutes later looked to have sealed the deal. Until Romain Ntamack lookalike Tauzin – in his last home match for the defending Top 14 champions – finished a sweeping 79th-minute move in the corner to give Thomas Ramos a difficult chance to level the scores. Which, the record shows, he did.
Mixed emotions, then, for the visitors, given voice by captain Gregory Alldritt: “We’re both disappointed and satisfied tonight. Satisfied because we played with a lot of intensity, and disappointed because it came down to details. Like a couple of exits that we didn’t control.”
Hastoy’s opinion pretty much followed the same track. “It’s a shame – I’m disappointed because we had the game in hand, but we’re a little too feverish,” he told Canal Plus on the sidelines at the end of the match. “We’ve got our attacking drive back and that’s a pleasure. We’ve got our destiny in our hands.”
Of the two teams, Toulouse will be the most satisfied – their mix-and-match squad had maintained their home record. As Thomas Ramos, playing at fly-half, said: “Our aim was not to lose this match. I think each team had its moments. What’s important to remember is that with very little training this week, but a lot of desire and a great state of mind, we managed to catch up with a team that had come to win.”
Individual performance
Paul Graou. You’ve got to be special to make it as an understudy to Antoine Dupont – absent from his club this week because he was busy winning gold at the HSBC SVNS Grand Final in Madrid. And Graou is doing just that job with serious aplomb. In fact, he’s doing it so well that his performance against La Rochelle on Sunday earned him not just a spot in Midi Olympique’s Team of the Week, but also the adjective ‘Dupontesque’.
This World Cup-affected season is an unusual one, but Graou has played 26 matches so far this season, 19 of them in the starting line-up. Dupont, in comparison, has started 15 of his 20 Toulouse games this season, three of them at fly-half. It’s safe to say that Graou’s doing more than merely taking the pressure off Dupont for Toulouse. He’s also taking the pressure of Mola, who can rotate his nines and rest his star, knowing he’ll get excellence from whoever starts.
Flop
“I said during the week that this was a match for big men, and I didn’t see any big men. I’m more sad than downcast – sad for the guys, the club, the fans, because we had [given ourselves] renewed hope. This … was a cold shower.”
That was Christophe Urios’s blunt, no-nonsense, opinion of Clermont’s performance in their 52-10 defeat at Toulon on Sunday. It’s impossible to argue. Six wins in nine had fans dreaming of an unlikely revival and an even more unlikely push into the top six.
That dream crashed into reality at Stade Mayol, as Pierre Mignoni’s side ran in six tries to their one to confirm Toulon’s first top-six finish – and, therefore, play-off run – since 2018.
Urios finished up with a rather desultory: “We’re going to turn our attention back to Montpellier to finish well and achieve our goal of the top eight.”
That, at least, would ensure Champions Cup rugby next season. But a couple of other sides – notably Perpignan, Castres and Pau – also have eyes on that particular prize.
Coaching call
Castres have been hit-and-miss in the goal-kicking stakes this season – often enough more miss than hit, with nominal kickers Pierre Popelin and Louis LeBrun both having accuracy issues off the tee.
This week, head coach Jeremy Davidson turned to scrum-half Jeremy Fernandez in the hope of some accuracy. And he landed four of six shots at goal – lumping the ball as if it had made an offensive comment about his mother. That, for Castres, this season, is a good enough return.
And he scored a try for good measure, as Castres beat Stade Francais 27-18 to keep their hopes of a top six finish alive into the final weekend of the season.
Talking point
Let’s talk about final week permutations. Toulouse have a semi-final pass in the bag. As the gameshow-lifted saying goes, that’s safe.
Stade Francais, Toulon and Bordeaux are certain to finish in the top six, and feature in the post-season play-offs.
But Stade Francais, longtime Top 14 leaders, can only look at what they could have won this week. No points at Castres denied them the second automatic semi-final spot this weekend, while Toulon’s big win over Clermont meant that they could steal it in the final round of the season.
The two sides meet at Stade Jean Bouin on Saturday. And Toulon can go all-out as they’re guaranteed at least home advantage in the barrage round, even if they lose. Stade, meanwhile, won’t want to lose the week off that a semi-final bye gifts them.
Bordeaux, at home to relegated Oyonnax next Saturday, should claim the other home barrage match. Which leaves the question of who they’ll face. For extra fun, fifth-place La Rochelle – who were a minute from booking their own top six place on Sunday – host sixth-placed Racing 92 on final Saturday. For both sides, three possibilities are in play.
They could win a home barrage. They could make certain of a top six finish – something Racing have done every year since 2010. They could miss out altogether.
Seventh-placed Perpignan and Castres, in eighth, who head to Pau and Bayonne respectively, will be looking to steal a play-off place at the last.
Even Pau and Clermont have an outside shot. But they need a whole lot of things to go their way.
Quote of the week
“We condemn beer-throwing, insults and smoking. But we also don’t want to curb the incredible fervour of the fans. That’s why, after several meetings with the other groups, we decided to offer the club our help.”
Vincent Panabieres, president of a Perpignan supporters’ group, who was one of the driving forces behind a fundraising effort at the match against Bordeaux that raised more than €7,000 to help the club pay a €15,000 fine imposed by the LNR because of poor fan behaviour at Stade Aime-Giral during a recent match against Clermont.
“We want to support USAP in this ordeal, beyond the money, for the values of solidarity that characterise us. The mistakes made by these supporters, which penalise the club, and which could have penalised the whole fanbase if a match had been played behind closed doors, must be repaired by the fans,” the combined supporters’ groups had said in a statement prior to the match.
Table
Five of the six post-season knockout phase places have yet to be confirmed, with one round of the campaign remaining.
Here’s the table after 25 rounds.
Stade Francais could lose second to Toulon; who could lose third to Bordeaux; who could – in theory, though it’s unlikely – lose fourth to either La Rochelle or Racing 92. One of those two is likely to lose out on the play-offs altogether, with Perpignan and Castres, in particular, ready to pounce.
It’s going to be some final weekend of the season, with all matches kicking off at 9.05pm (France time) on Saturday and some coaches and players paying almost as much attention to what’s going on elsewhere as what’s happening right in front of them.
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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