As the Top 14 marathon enters the final straight, there’s still plenty to play for at both ends of the table. But what are the prospects for each of the teams in the final five rounds of the regular season?
The next round of Top 14 fixtures – the 22nd of 26 in the regular season – is a Fan Days’ weekend.
It kicks off with the ever-feisty Toulouse v Castres, a game switched to Stadium Toulouse. Then Clermont host Lyon, Bayonne entertain Pau in Donostia / San Sebastián, Perpignan travel to Montpellier; Vannes face Toulon in the only game that’s definitively and comprehensively outside the ever-spreading ‘derby’ umbrella; Bordeaux meet La Rochelle in Saturday prime-time fixture; and the weekend finishes with Racing 92 v Stade Francais.
The logic of scheduling a Fan Days weekend at this point in the season is impeccable. The timing is deliciously cruel.
The weather in France – though you may not believe it if you saw last weekend’s match between Castres and Vannes at Stade Pierre Fabre – is improving. The business-end-of-the-season tension is rising. Five season-defining matches remain for most clubs. One, perhaps two, more are on the calendar for four French sides: Bordeaux, Toulouse, Lyon and Racing 92.
READ ALSO Made in France: How ‘JIFF’ rules transformed French rugby
In France’s second-tier ProD2, into which the Fan Days’ weekend extends, the race for the top six is more straightforward. With three matches left in the regular season, Grenoble, on 90 points, are already looking to the post-season play-offs. Brive, on 84, have all-but qualified. And five teams – Colomiers (77), Provence (76), Beziers (72), Montauban (72), and Soyaux-Angouleme (71) – are fighting it out for the remaining four places.
At the other end of the table, Nice are down, but have recruited heavily for an immediate return from the Nationale, while Aurillac are 15th, in the relegation play-off spot. Mathematically, all sides as high as eighth-placed Nevers are still at risk of a second-from-bottom finish. Realistically, however, Mont-de-Marsan, Agen, Biarritz, and Valence Romans are in the greatest danger.
READ ALSO After ‘preparing for the worst’, Tom Daly determined to make most of Nice opportunity
The Top 14, however, is a much harder call. Toulouse and Bordeaux are already certain of places in the post-season race to the Brennus. But teams as far down as 10th-placed Pau can still stake some sort of claim to one of the remaining four top six slots.
The drag of the relegation zone, meanwhile, extends well beyond the bottom two – both of whom could yet escape the drop. While Pau may well harbour top six hopes, they’re far from safe – and their run-in is far from straightforward.
TOULOUSE (74 points)
Run-in: Castres (h); Champions Cup – Bordeaux (a); Toulon (a); Racing 92 (h); Lyon (h); Perpignan (a)
Toulouse. Top 14 leaders. Champions Cup semi-finalists. Defenders of both titles. Five points clear of second-placed Bordeaux. Already qualified for the post-season play-offs, and apparently pretty much set for a top-two finish. Toulouse have a problem.
When Naoto Saito was helped off the plastic Stade Jean Bouin pitch with an ankle injury in Sunday’s 21-27 win over Stade Francais, Toulouse suddenly found themselves with the bare bones of cover at scrum-half. At the worst time.
The management had decided not to scour the rugby world for a medical joker after Antoine Dupont ruptured an ACL in France’s Six Nations’ win over Ireland. Instead, they kept the faith with Paul Graou, Saito, teenagers Simon Daroque and Nathan Llaveria, and planning to use former scrum-half Ange Capuozzo as cover.
Capuozzo is out until some time in May. Saito is a doubt for this week’s visit of Castres. Daroque has 114 minutes of senior rugby to his name – including 52 in one match in early January. Llaveria has none. Groau is the only fit senior nine on the books – and Toulouse need him fit for the Champions Cup semi-final in Bordeaux.
It’s a problem. It could, potentially, be a major problem. The question is: is it a championship-ending problem?
BORDEAUX (69 points)
Run-in: La Rochelle (h); Champions Cup – Toulouse (h); Montpellier (a); Castres (h); Toulon (a); Vannes (h)
The win at Pau last Saturday was Bordeaux’s sixth this season. And it was achieved with a heavily rotated squad – with 12 different starters, including an entirely new pack, from the previous week’s Champions Cup win over Munster as Yannick Bru manages his squad to continue their push on twin fronts.
READ ALSO What lessons have Bordeaux-Begles learned?
With key players rested for the trip to the Bearn, those squad members who don’t see as much gametime did him and the shirt proud. There’ll be more rotation against La Rochelle this weekend ahead of that big Champions Cup last-four game against Toulouse at Matmut Atlantique
This is the way for ambitious Top 14 clubs looking to challenge across the competitions – Castres, for example, don’t intend this year’s run to be a flash in the pan.
Right now, though, Bordeaux have a clear Top 14 target – a top two finish, and the barrage-week bye that comes with it. Bru believes that week off in June ahead of the semi-finals is crucial to challenging the Toulouse hegemony. We might find out if he’s right this year.
TOULON (67 points)
Run-in: Vannes (a); Toulouse (h); Pau (a); Bordeaux (h); Bayonne (a)
The last of the French top-flight’s breakaway trio. For the first time since the current Top 14 format was introduced in 2009/10, there’s clear water between the top three and the chasing pack.
Like Toulouse, like Bordeaux, Pierre Mignoni’s Toulon are desperately seeking a top-two finish. That late-season bye-week is a modern French rugby relic to be prized. Put it this way, no side has raised the Brennus aloft after playing three times in the knockouts since Castres in 2018.
Last season, the Var side returned to the domestic play-offs for the first time in six seasons – but came off second-best at home against La Rochelle in the barrage round. Mignoni wants to avoid that banana-skin match this year. And, like the two sides above his, he has the squad to manage it.
Third they may be, but Toulon have a potential fixture list ace in the hole. They’ve already a week to digest their Champions Cup exit – beating Clermont at home. After their Fan Days trip to Vannes, therefore, they have a week off. Then they entertain Toulouse at the Velodrome the week after the Champions Cup semi-final. And they host Bordeaux, at Mayol, the week after the final. And Mignoni’s lot are unbeaten at home this season…
BAYONNE (54 points)
Run-in: Pau (h); Racing 92 (a); Vannes (h); Castres (a); Toulon (h)
Bayonne are at the gates of uncharted territory. The three-time French champions have never before reached the Top 14 play-off phase. They last reached the final in 1982, long before professionalism, let alone the league’s current format.
They head into the final straight of the season unbeaten at home, with three of their five remaining matches on ‘their own’ turf, if you include Estadio Anoeta in that thinking.
Gregory Patat appeared to answer questions about his own immediate future – thrown into some doubt when it was announced that Laurent Travers will join the club as sporting director at the end of the season – recently when he declared: “My ambition is to continue with Aviron, to grow with this club, to make other final stages. That’s the only goal in mind.”
While a run to the semi-finals is entirely possible from here, it’s still hard to see Bayonne going all the way to the Top 14 title. But what a sign-off for the retiring Camille Lopez, who will move into the coaching set-up at the end of the season.
CASTRES (53 points)
Run-in: Toulouse (a); Clermont (h); Bordeaux (a); Bayonne (h); Stade Francais (a)
Mid-season coaching changes are, conventional wisdom has it, to be avoided where possible. Stade Francais, Racing 92, and Lyon had probable cause to ignore conventional wisdom at various times this season. Castres, however, brought it on themselves by announcing first that Jeremy Davidson’s contract would not be extended; then by announcing attack coach Xavier Sadourny would take over from next season.
Cue doubt over who’s actually in charge – the outgoing boss, or the incoming one. In early January, Davidson stepped back altogether, taking on a short-term ‘adviser to the president’ role that will, coincidently, end in July.
READ ALSO Will Collier: ‘Under Borthwick, I really could have added to the squad’
At the time of Davidson’s step-back, Castres were limping along stoically. They were eighth in the Top 14, and had won one of two Champions Cup pool matches. In his first two matches, Sadourny guided them to wins over Bulls and Saracens, to reach the knockout phase for the first time since 2002. They then won at Racing to pick up their first win on the road, and have picked up at least a point in every Top 14 match under his charge.
They’ve lost just twice in 2025 – at Montpellier in the Top 14, and at Northampton in the Champions Cup quarter-final. Now, however, comes the really tough bit. Castres have a difficult run-in, and seem to be 10 points shy of a qualification place. It’s not going to be easy getting them – but, coaches would rather be in Sadourny’s position than, say, Urios’s, right now.
LYON (48 points)
Run-in: Clermont (a); Challenge Cup – Racing 92 (h); Pau (h); Stade Francais (a); Toulouse (a); Racing 92 (h)
When Karim Ghezal joined Lyon as – then temporary – head coach in early December, they were 13th in the Top 14, with four wins from their first 11 games.
On his watch, they have won six and drawn two of the 10 domestic games that followed to climb into the post-season play-off places, and win home advantage against Racing 92 in the all-French second semi-final of the Challenge Cup.
READ ALSO AB Zondagh: ‘To say that it was a difficult situation is an understatement’
It’s no surprise, then, that the club’s backroom brokers have already tied Ghezal to a new contract, keeping him at Stade Gerland until 2028.
A run to the domestic play-offs and some silverware at the first time of asking will only cement an already impressive reputation in southeast France. Three of their five remaining Top 14 games are on the road – including this weekend’s crucial trip to the side just below them in the table. But expect Lyon to be in the reckoning all the way to the end.
CLERMONT (44 points)
Run-in: Lyon (h); Castres (a); Perpignan (h); Stade Francais (h); Montpellier (a)
A couple of quietly turbulent years at Clermont look to be slowly fading out. Behind the scenes restructuring is well under way after local business Michelin took a 100 percent stake in the club in June 2023 – and manager Christophe Urios agreed a contract extension through to 2027 last October.
The next step is to get the club out of the rugby doldrums, where they have languished for too long. A return to the knockout phase of the Champions Cup this season was a start, for all that Clermont were well beaten by Northampton in the round-of-16. Better still would be to combine that with a run into the play-off phase of the Top 14.
The fixture list suggests they have a shot – but they’ll need to win at least four of their last five matches to take it. Next season will be a more serious goal.
LA ROCHELLE (44 points)
Run-in: Bordeaux (a); Vannes (a); Montpellier (h); Perpignan (h); Pau (a)
What a difference a victory makes. It may have been nervy – it was certainly far from perfect, and there may only have been a single point in it. But the 29-28 result against Bayonne that ended a 105-day, nine-match winless streak is everything to La Rochelle.
One win does not a push for the Top 14 title make – but, if the players are to be believed, it just might..
La Rochelle aren’t out of the play-off hunt just yet – and the upward ambition is still evident, if Dillyn Leyds’ comments are any indication: “We have to make the most of this … We have to take this momentum and go to Bordeaux to win. With this team and the talent of the guys, it is not possible for us to think about [just] playing for survival. We must always think about doing everything possible to qualify [for the play-offs].”
READ ALSO Dillyn Leyds: ‘I was probably the main culprit… It was really tough’
No one is suggesting that, suddenly, structural issues at the club have vanished in a puff of league points. Far from it. As forwards coach Romain Carmignani said: “For the past 10 years, we’ve been on a roll. This is the first period like this we’ve experienced, and success has created certain problems. It’s leading us to think differently about the club’s strategy, its direction at all levels. This is a period we have to go through, that we have to accept, to find solutions.”
Six matches to go. Leyds’ play-off goal may be a little too ambitious, but it’s not out of the question. A Champions Cup target is more realistic… and then the club can worry about the longer-term future.
MONTPELLIER (43 points)
Run-in: Perpignan (h); Bordeaux (h); La Rochelle (a); Racing 92 (a); Clermont (h)
“We’re not playing as a team, we’re not together. [Our performance was] not worthy of a team aiming for the top six” was fullback Anthony Bouthier’s blunt assessment for Canal Plus’ cameras immediately after Montpellier’s 32-23 loss at Lyon on Saturday. They had been clumsy with and without the ball all afternoon.
Head coach Joan Caudullo was even more critical in the post-match press conference. “We lack consistency…” he fumed. “We got away with it against Paris, but that was the tree that hid the forest. Against Gloucester in the Challenge Cup, and here in Lyon, the reality of our situation is staring us in the face.”
After a hesitant start, first-time head coach Caudullo has done a decent job of transforming a squad of individual tainted talents into something resembling a team, and dragged them by their bootstraps up from the foot of the table to mid-table mediocrity.
Caudullo’s season one goal is higher still. But every one of their last five opponents has something to play for, one way or the other. It won’t be easy – and that’s how a league should be.
PAU (43 points)
Run-in: Bayonne (a); Lyon (a); Toulon (h); Vannes (a); La Rochelle (h)
Louis Bielle-Biarrey’s remarkable try is the key moment in the snapshot history of Pau’s 22-26 loss at home to Bordeaux. Rightly so. But Monday’s debrief at Pau will have focused on their own errors: a missed drop goal from the otherwise impressive Axel Desperes, proving a worthy understudy to the injured Joe Simmonds; a disallowed try that Bordeaux boss Yannick Bru admitted would have killed off the visitors’ comeback; and the unforced handling errors that led to both Bordeaux’s tries.
READ ALSO Joe Simmonds: ‘My rugby at Exeter was not where I wanted it to be’
This has been the story of Pau’s season – so much exuberant promise, so many avoidable mistakes.
Manager Sebastien Picqueronies won’t want his – mostly young – charges to lose their sense of adventure. Even so, they’re clearly missing Simmonds’ experience and cool head. A highest-ever Top 14 finish remains a distinct possibility for Pau. But the play-off dream is fading.
RACING 92 (40 points)
Run-in: Stade Francais (h); Challenge Cup – Lyon (a); Bayonne (h); Toulouse (a); Montpellier (h); Lyon (a)
In 2020/21, Montpellier skirted with relegation, changed coaches in January, and won the Challenge Cup – qualifying for the following season’s Champions Cup in the process. Then they went on to land the Top 14 title in 2022.
This is far from the easiest of witches’ roads, but it ends in survival, silverware, and a seat at pan-league rugby’s top table – and never mind what happened last season. And it’s also the route that Racing 92, finishing the season under Patrice Collazo having started it with Stuart Lancaster, are trying to navigate right now.
READ ALSO Patrice Collazo’s mission to rescue Racing 92
Montpellier climbed to 10th, with 54 points, by the end of their Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Got-Away-With-It Campaign, which means commando coach Collazo and his underachieving side still have plenty of work to do, starting with the visit of the side immediately below them in the table. Right now, the only thing in their favour is that they’re not currently in the bottom two spots.
STADE FRANCAIS (36 points)
Run-in: Racing 92 (a); Perpignan (a); Lyon (h); Clermont (a); Castres (h)
Never mind the last three games against Lyon, Clermont or Castres. The next two games – at Racing 92 and at Perpignan – will make or break Stade Francais’ season.
Racing have lost five at home this season, so there’s hope. But Paul Gustard’s side have picked up just a single bonus point on their travels, the worst away record in the league. And their defeat at home against a heavily rotated Toulouse side on Sunday night suddenly means they badly need to change their stars.
READ ALSO Paul Gustard to stay at Stade Francais after all
After the 21-27 loss, forwards coach Julien Tastets said: “We’re starting a four-way championship with Racing, Vannes and Perpignan. They’ll be high-pressure matches.
“You play these games with the fear of losing more than anything else. We’re prepared for that. We’re going to do everything we can to avoid a play-off against a Pro D2 team.”
He’s definitely not wrong. But big-budget Stade Francais are likely to need help achieving his ambition.
PERPIGNAN (36 points)
Run-in: Montpellier (a); Stade Francais (h); Clermont (a); La Rochelle (a); Toulouse (h)
A rainbow over Stade Aime Giral greeted Saturday’s Tomasso Allan-led 28-24 victory over Racing 92 – which was far more than just a record straightener of a win after their Challenge Cup round-of-16 loss at the same venue against the same side a fortnight earlier.
It was also a first win for the Catalans since January 25, seven matches previously. Morale matters, especially for a side second from bottom and fighting for survival.
While Allan was the catalyst – scoring seven penalties and starting the move that led to Uqueqe Duguivalu’s wonder try – it’s the effects of the latter that will have further reaching consequences in the run-in. Moments maketh belief.
VANNES (30 points)
Run-in: Toulon (h); La Rochelle (h); Bayonne (a); Pau (h); Bordeaux (a)
Few pundits expected Vannes to survive a first-ever Top 14 campaign. Fewer still thought they would have much left other than pride to play for beyond Christmas. And yet, here we are: with five matches remaining, the Breton side are still fighting.
READ ALSO Detecting a vibrant rugby heartbeat in northern France
Their tricky route to survival is narrowing rapidly, however. Toulon and La Rochelle are unlikely to send rotated weakened sides to northwest France either side of the Champions Cup / Challenge Cup semi-final break.
Manager Jean-Noel Spitzer conceded after Saturday’s convincing loss at rain-sodden Castres that some of his go-to veterans were feeling their match-minutes this season. He – and the fans – need them to hold on if Vannes are to pull off what would be a genuinely great relegation escape.
Looking for insightful, knowledgeable French rugby content? My name is James Harrington. I’m a France-based freelance sports journalist, writing mostly about French club and international rugby. Contact me for match previews, reviews, articles, news, features, interviews, live blogs, or just all-round, up-to-date, French rugby expertise.
You can read my regular French rugby column in The Rugby Paper every Sunday. I also round-up the Top 14 action on the Irish Examiner website.
I’ve popped up on Rugbypass, and even done bits for Rugby World.
James Harrington: Rugby writer and freelance sports journalist 
James Harrington: Rugby writer and freelance sports journalist
Expert French
rugby insight