How Top 14 sides stack up for return of Champions and Challenge Cups

What are the coaches of Top 14 sides thinking as the two tri-league competitions return? How much has December’s loss at Glasgow hurt Toulouse? Could Northampton beat Bordeaux at Chaban Delmas? What does Toulon’s big loss at La Rochelle mean for their chances?

Here, in Top 14 table order, is how all the French sides are faring as the Champions and Challenge Cup competitions enter their crucial two-week pool-phase block.

Toulouse

December’s defeat in Glasgow didn’t cataclysmically dent Toulouse’s double ambitions, but it noticeably narrowed the path. A maximum 16 points is now all they can plan and hope for – they face Saracens at the Stonex this Sunday, and host Sale at Stade Ernest Wallon next weekend.

If any French club can win the Champions Cup the hard way, it’s Ugo Mola’s Toulouse. With Saracens in mind, he held back most of his big guns last weekend, and sent an young and inexperienced squad to Perpignan — where, with 20-year-old breakout centre Kalvin Gourgues playing at fly-half for the first time in his pro career and hooker Peato Mauvaka returning from an ACL injury, they almost won. More players, including backrow Francois Cros and winger Matthis Lebel are expected back from injury lay-offs this weekend, while fly-half Romain Ntamack is a doubt. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise to see Thomas Ramos line up at 10 against Sarries this weekend.

Pau

Anyone surprised to see Pau this high up the Top 14 table and in the Champions Cup this season clearly hasn’t paid enough attention to French rugby. Manager Sebastien Piqueronies has been busily building a legacy squad from the kids up, led by the likes of Emilien Gailleton, Theo Attissogbe, Fabien Brau-Boirie, and new kid on the block Gregoire Arfeuil. His work is now paying dividends. 

Domestically at least. Pau’s return to the Champions Cup for the first time since 2001 — which continues with a trip this weekend to Parc Y Scarlets, then sees them at home to Bulls — hasn’t gone quite as well as their domestic challenge so far. They pushed Northampton in their opener, at home, in December but were comprehensively outclassed in Bristol second time out. Their interest in this year’s competition is likely to end after the match against Bulls, but expect them to return, stronger and better prepared, next season.

Stade Francais

Top 14 turnaround team Stade Francais head into the second block of Challenge Cup pool phase games on the back of a 33-15 Top 14 bonus-point win over Castres at Stade Jean Bouin. Paul Gustard’s Stade have picked up at least one point in every one their last seven matches in all competitions, and have nine Top 14 bonus points in 14 matches this season. Only Toulouse have more. 

It’s a far cry from last season when they finished 12th, one point above the relegation play-off spot, after burning through a manager and a sporting director and persuading Gustard, who had started the campaign as defence coach to stay against his initial wishes before building a new staff around him.  Stade won their first two Challenge Cup games this season, and head into this block’s matches — at home to Exeter and at Ulster — clearly looking for a high seeding in the knockout phase. A clean pool phase sweep is a clear and present possibility, but Stade’s notable defensive systems will get a workout on the way.

Bordeaux

When the Champions Cup pools were unveiled, one match stood out above all others — the rerun of last season’s final between title holders Bordeaux and Northampton Saints, at Stade Chaban Delmas on Sunday.

Hours after Northampton had run 10 tries past a lacklustre Harlequins at the weekend, Bordeaux scored nine against Racing 92 — including seven in 25 irrepressible second-half minutes. It all points to a thrilling encounter this weekend, especially with Matthieu Jalibert in world-beating form, Yoram Moefana back to his best after injury, wingers Damian Penaud and Louis Bielle-Biarrey scoring at will, and Nicolas Depoortere matching them, behind a pack that looks increasingly certain of themselves. Northampton will need to be at their very best to get the better of the reigning champions on their home turf — only Pau have managed that so far this season.

Toulon

Don’t read anything into Toulon’s 66-0 Top 14 mismatch loss at La Rochelle on Sunday. As manager Pierre Mignoni told journalists afterwards as he defended selecting 10 academy players: “We have 19 players out due to injuries and mandatory leave … and we have four very important matches coming up. We had little chance of winning, let’s be honest. We had to make choices — we made them, and I stand by them.”

Those four matches: Munster at Stade Mayol and Gloucester at Kingsholm, with the Champions Cup knockout phase on the line; then Montpellier at home and Pau away in the Top 14 before the Six Nations break. Mignoni made his choice. He factored defeat at La Rochelle into his thinking to plot a strong bid for the round-of-16 and beyond in the Champions Cup, then to win at least one of the two domestic games — the first one for definite —  before most of his players get a spot of much-needed regeneration time. It didn’t do Sunday night’s spectacle any favours, but we’ll see how well his tactical choice works in a few weeks.

Montpellier

Depending on who you spoke to before the season kicked off, Montpellier’s Top 14 target was top four, according to president Mohed Altrad, or, for manager Joan Caudullo, top six. No mention of the Challenge Cup was made back in August, but two-bonus point wins from two in December is a clear declaration of intent.

Caudullo’s side sit top of Pool 1 heading into the second pool phase fortnight with 10 points. But their next two matches are against sides in third — Connacht, who they face on Sunday at the Septeo Stadium — then second, when they travel to Ospreys. Banana-skin matches, the pair of them, but after a difficult couple of seasons, the 2022 Top 14 champions are rebuilding consistency, and have climbed up to fifth in the domestic league. It’s hard to imagine this born-again Montpellier missing out on the knockout phase. They’re looking to go deep into both competitions.

La Rochelle

La Rochelle pinballed from a 60-14 loss with a much-changed side at Toulouse — ‘the biggest defeat of my career’, according to coach Ronan O’Gara — to that nine-try 66-0 home win over Toulon Hypotheticals at Stade Marcel Deflandre in two Top 14 outings either side of the New Year. Next up for the 2022 and 2023 Champions Cup winners, Leinster in Dublin, the side  they beat in those two finals. So, how much should we read into La Rochelle’s two recent games? 

Backs coach Remi Tales insisted they had ‘learned’ their rugby lesson in Toulouse. And it seems they had. Their pack was focused and mobile against Toulon. Their first four tries started with a set-piece — their fifth was Levani Botia’s 50th for the club. As extended training sessions go, Sunday’s win was a success, particularly their ability to keep Toulon scoreless. But Leinster at home in the Champions Cup will be a very different challenge. Since the 2023 final, Leo Cullen’s side have had the upper hand over O’Gara’s side, winning two pool phase matches in La Rochelle, and again in the 2024 quarter-final. That said, if La Rochelle are within a score in the last quarter, they have a shout.

Clermont

The Champions Cup format means that, despite two losses in their December games, maul-happy Clermont could still qualify for the knockout phase with wins at home against Glasgow Warriors this weekend and against Sharks in South Africa a week later. But the two Top 14 matches immediately after the Champions Cup fortnight look more likely to be highlighted in manager Christophe Urios’s diary. 

After their brief winter getaway to Durban, they host La Rochelle at Stade Marcel Michelin, then travel to Castres. Urios won’t want Clermont to end their Champions Cup campaign without a win, but a Top 14 play-off spot in June would matter more. 

Bayonne

Bayonne are living in interesting times with — to mix metaphors — the sands shifting ever more violently under manager Gregory Patat’s feet. On Saturday, even as Patat insisted to journalists he had no qualms about his future at the club immediately after another heavy defeat on the road, club president Philippe Tayeb was telling French pay-TV broadcaster Canal Plus that tough staffing decisions were coming. The first came two days later, with former backrow Jean Monribot walking into the staff break room as the club’s lineout coach on Monday. 

It’s increasingly evident something is very off at the Basque club, where expectations are exceeding performance. A pre-New Year clear-the-air meeting failed to take, as a strong-looking squad on paper leaked 62 points at Montpellier. Since their Top 14 opening day win in Perpignan on September 6, Bayonne have lost all seven on the road, conceding 362 points. It’s in this poor form, low-morale, mood that they head to Leicester this week. It’s hard to see any turnaround prospect coming quickly enough to prevent another mauling. And then they host Leinster.

Castres

In the days leading up to December’s 33-0 Champions Cup win over Edinburgh, Castres’ president Pierre-Yves Revol delivered an unequivocally stern assessment of his club’s mixed early season performances. Since then, they’ve picked up a losing bonus in Montpellier in a match they could have won, beaten Lyon at home but threw away a try bonus, and were stymied by their own indiscipline and imprecision — notably at the restarts and, criminally, in the scoring zone — at Stade Francais.

A single point separates all six sides in Pool 2 of the Champions Cup. And Castres have knockout phase ambitions here as much as in the Top 14. Even with a home match against PREM side Bath on Friday, and a trip to Munster next week, it’s not beyond Castres’ Jekyll and Hyde abilities to pick up the points they need to reach the round-of-16. But they need to play much, much better than they did in Paris on Saturday.

Racing 92

December was an odd month for Racing. They shipped 60 against Ulster in Belfast, drew with Exeter and Stade Francais, and scored 60 to beat Montauban. Then, as 2026 rolled in, they conceded 47 unanswered points in 25 second-half minutes at Bordeaux to end on the wrong side of another 60-point scoreline.

Patrice Collazo used the first two pool phase rounds against Ulster and Exeter to rotate his squad and give some younger and fringe players a run-out. There’s every reason to assume he’ll repeat that selection tactic at Cardiff and against Cheetahs at La Defense Arena. His eyes are on the two Top 14 home games against Lyon and Perpignan that come before the Six Nations kicks off rather than an extended Challenge Cup run.

Lyon

Manager Karim Ghezal warned before the season started that Lyon probably did not have the squad to compete on two fronts this season. Given that statement, plus Lyon’s safe-but-way-off-the-pace league position, their two Challenge Cup defeats from two so far, it might seem safe to assume the boss won’t take his strongest available side to South Africa for this weekend’s pool match against Lions at Ellis Park.

But, after kicking off 2026 with a hold-the-nerve win over high-flying Pau to end a five-match losing run and claim just their third victory since their long-forgotten quick Top 14 start in September, it’s not impossible he’s looking at least one win from this triple-league tournament fortnight to take something approaching momentum back into the two-week domestic campaign leading up to the Six Nations break. The question is: Lions in Johannesburg, or Treviso at home?

Perpignan 

Laurent Labit, Nicolas Nadau and Joe Worsley took charge at Stade Aime Giral at the end of November, with Perpignan on a nine-match losing streak. The Catalans lost their next two, before winning their first match of the campaign, at the 12th time of asking, against Dragons in the first round of the Challenge Cup.

They have since won two of their last three in the Top 14, claiming the scalps of Clermont and Toulouse. But they have little serious interest in a long Challenge Cup run, so don’t expect much at Newcastle or against Lions at home — though a number of players returning from injury may get a run-out, with a Big Game at home against Montauban in store for the resumption of the Top 14.

Montauban 

Sebastien Tillous-Borde’s Montauban need a Challenge Cup success. Not because they intend to go deep into the competition’s knockout phase, but because they haven’t won since October 25, have shipped 374 points in the eight matches in all competitions since that sole victory this season, and slipped to the bottom of the Top 14 last weekend when they lost at home to Clermont.

The surprise ProD2 champions always knew this campaign would be almost impossibly difficult. A win over Black Lion, the one side below them in the Challenge Cup Pool 1 rankings, would be a genuine Sapiac crowd pleaser before their Top 14 season resumes — after what looks for all the world like a training trip to Connacht — at nearest rivals Perpignan on January 24.