Top 14 back with a top-of-the-table bang after Six Nations’ break

FRANCE’S Top 14 returns this weekend for an eight-round stop-go sprint to the play-offs after a mid-season break for the final two weekends of the men’s part of the 2025 Six Nations tripartite.

And we start at the end. The returning weekend of Top 14 rugby is a prime example of fixture-list perversity, as Bordeaux and Toulouse – two sides that provided the bulk of the players to Fabien Galthie’s champion squad, as well as a goodly chunk of the under-20s – meet at the 42,000-plus capacity Matmut Atlantique on Sunday for the closing match of the 19th round of the season.

It is difficult, bordering on impossible, to find a place for a blockbuster match like this at this stage of the season that guarantees the teamsheet it deserves. 

The men’s and the under-20s Six Nations sit like outsized lead ball bearings on the rubber sheet of the fixture list between January and March. The knockout phase of the Champions Cup then enters the coaches’ chat, returning on April 6. Both Bordeaux and Toulouse – the top two sides in France’s domestic title race – have a serious stake in that competition, too. 

Then there’s the small matter of the domestic run-in. Both are all-but certain to feature in the postseason play-offs for the Bouclier de Brennus. There is, however, a direct route to the semi-finals and a blissful bye week for the top two to play for – and Toulon, especially, would like a word. 

In May, Bordeaux and Toulouse both travel to the side currently sitting third in the table.

But, back to this week’s Top 14 return. Toulouse have no intention of picking a full-bore side for a revenge mission against the one side to have beaten them at home this season.

Beyond the injured Antoine Dupont, absent until at least November with ruptured knee ligaments, and Pierre-Louis Barassi, concussed in the win over Ireland, as many as 11 French Six Nations-winning internationals are expected to be left out from the reigning Top 14 champions’ roster on Sunday night. As will Scotland’s Blair Kinghorn and Italy’s Ange Capuozzo.

The convenient truth, for Toulouse at least, is that they don’t need a win on Sunday. Ugo Mola has a twin-front end-of-season run-in to manage, making for a bigger challenge than even Bordeaux away.

An impressive 18 Top 14 points out of a possible 20 during the Six Nations period for Toulouse means they’re five points clear of their hosts at the top of the table, eight ahead of Toulon, while fourth-placed Bayonne are a further 10 points back. 

Bordeaux, too, aren’t urgently in need of victory. Like Toulouse they have four home Top 14 matches to ensure a top-two finish and the Champions Cup to consider, so will likely rest at least a couple of their France stars.

Louis Bielle-Biarrey and Yoram Moefana both played every minute of the Six Nations and are likely to get a week off. Maxime Lucu, too, who impressively filled in for the injured Dupont against Ireland and Scotland.

All of which seems very downbeat. It’s not intended to be. Weather permitting – and rain is expected in early forecasts – these two sides will put on a show. We just may have to wait until the last match of the French season for the full-strength encounter.

La Rochelle – who host Castres at Marcel Deflandre in the opening match of the weekend – don’t have the same league positional luxury as Bordeaux and Toulouse, two sides they would like to consider equals. They’re currently ninth in the table, on a six-match losing streak.

La Rochelle’s problem is that their academy isn’t operating at Toulouse speed. Far from it. As a result, and by their own admission, they struggle to cope with injuries (and they have had numerous injury lay-offs to deal with) and during international windows. It’s partly their own fault. They scarcely used their academy until a thoroughly entertaining defeat at Toulon, and the staff seemed almost uniformly surprised at how well their young stars played for an hour.

In a recent interview with Le Dauphine Libéré, coach Romain Carmignani said: “The Top 14 is skewed. As long as the French team plays at the same time as the league, it’s going to get complicated. 

“When you have clubs without international players who welcome you with their first team and we travel with half of your team made up of young players from the training centre, I don’t think it’s fair and it proves that we’re not in the same boat.”

La Rochelle aren’t in the same boat as Toulouse, certainly. While the defending Top 14 champions were picking up 18 points out of a maximum 20 during the Six Nations’ window, and 24 out of 30 for all international periods this season with 10 or so players called up to their national squads, La Rochelle have struggled with the absence of three or four. They picked up eight points altogether – including just two during the Six Nations.  

Carmignani added: “Often, at the start of the season, young players think we don’t need them, but ultimately, it happens sooner than expected. Our job is to anticipate all of that, and we realise today the importance of having a developed and competitive squad on every matchday. We have kids from the training centre who will be called upon to play, and they’re not necessarily aware of that.”

That’s quite the admission. And those twin eight points and two points figures demonstrate how far back La Rochelle are and how far they need to go to catch up with the envied Toulouse production line.

Saturday’s hosts have won just once in 2025, back on the first weekend of the year. The opponents, fifth-placed Castres, have lost just once in 2025. And, perhaps to prove Carmignani’s point, they have a squad unworried by recent Six Nations’ activity. Though, if they do condemn La Rochelle to a seventh defeat in a row, it’s as much to do with ongoing structural issues at the Maritimes as anything else.

Toulon host Perpignan in the third flagship match of the weekend – the one in the Saturday primetime slot. All the indicators say that Pierre Mignoni’s side will comfortably beat Franck Azema’s 13th-placed visitors.

In the weekend’s other matches, Clermont – reportedly losing respected S&C director Vincent Giacobbi at the end of the season – host struggling Racing 92; Lyon – with the ink on Karim Ghezal’s new three-year deal still drying – entertain bottom-of-the-table Vannes, a side looking for their fourth win in five outings; Pau meet Montpellier, two places higher up the table but level on points; and Stade Francais face Bayonne. 

Reports suggest that the Parisian side’s head coach Paul Gustard, under contract to 2026, would like to leave to take the Leicester job. The Premiership club, equally, are keen to bring him back to Welford Road, but may not have the financial wherewithal to buy him out of the final year of his deal in France. 

The club’s owner, Capri-Sun King Hans-Peter Wild – who previously made it perfectly clear he was keen to keep Gustard on staff – has a decision to make. Keep Gustard on for one more year, apparently against his wishes, or almost completely revamp his coaching staff for the new campaign: as well as Ghezal and Laurent Labit’s departures during the season, forwards coach Julien Tastet reportedly also wants to leave for Castres, while performance director Ange-François Costella is said to be in advanced talks to move to Clermont.