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The Top 14 season in review - club by club

Have Racing 92 salvaged something from a season to forget?

Six teams and five matches remain in the race for the French championship’s Bouclier de Brennus – but the regular Top 14 season is now over. James Harrington reviews each club’s campaign

La Rochelle

Contrary to usual practice and convention, everyone loves this particular fearless Top 14 over-achiever. The genuine surprise package of the season beat all-comers to finish the regular season seven points clear of second-placed Clermont. And they did it with smiles on their faces – and with one of the league’s lowest playing budgets (they rank 12th on the spending list, if you must know). The fear is they may be coming off the boil at the business end of the season. They horlicksed home advantage against Gloucester in the Challenge Cup semi final, and a three-week break before their next outing – a small and meaningless Top 14 play-off semi in Marseille – could actually work against them.

Clermont

Once again, Clermont are  where they should be at the end of the regular Top 14 season, competing for major honours on two fronts. Once again, there’s that nagging fear they’ll come unstuck in both Europe and France. They have been here before. In 2015, they reached the finals of both tournaments. They lost both, prompting club president Eric De Cromieres to write an open letter of apology to fans. He will not want to write another one. At least this year, Clermont have a week off after the European Cup final in Edinburgh to recover, win or lose.

Montpellier

How Jake White would love French rugby’s big prize to sign off his two-and-a-half seasons at Montpellier with a metaphorical Andrew Mehrtens-style gesture. His win-first, impress-later policy has won silverware, in the shape of last season’s Challenge Cup, but it hasn’t won hearts and minds in France. It’s a shame he left it so late to realise that big can also be beautiful, as his monster-sized team started playing some brutally stunning rugby in the latter part of this season. A semi-final trip along the south coast to Marseille should be in the bag. But quarter-final opponents Racing will be poring over videos of the weekend’s match against Stade Francais with interest. Few have come as close to winning at the Altrad this Top 14 season as the Paris side. There may be clues, there.

Toulon

As in England, so in France. A double helping of blood on the managers’ carpet stains a troubled season that has ended – more by sheer will than good judgement – in fourth, the play-offs, and a seat at Europe’s top table next season. Toulon remain a shadow of their former galactico selves – but now Mourad’s finally got his man in incoming director of rugby Fabien Galthie, can we expect better things from Toulon next season? One thing’s for sure, the rugby will be sexier. But first, a home play-off quarter-final against Castres under rather more abrasive temporary head coach Richard Cockerill – another who’s probably quietly daydreaming about hand gestures of a certain kind towards his former employers at Leicester, if Toulon win the title.

Castres Olympique

The Christophe Urios project sounds like a ropey 70s prog rock band. But at the end of its second season, this project seems to be working at Castres. The side Urios inherited when he arrived from Oyonnax at the end of the 2014/15 season had avoided relegation to the ProD2 only by the application of advanced Top 14 mathematics. In his first season in charge, they finished the regular season in sixth. This season, they’re fifth and Urios was, publicly at least, unimpressed with their Champions Cup campaign.

Racing 92

Credit where it’s due. After compiling the dictionary definition of a season from hell, Racing pulled themselves back from the edge of post-title-winning embarrassment to sneak into the play-offs at the death. But it took the failed merger bomb to inject anything approaching life on the pitch. Until that rugby world-shaking announcement, they looked lethargic and lumpen and ready for any excuse to give up on a game. But four wins from the final five matches saved their campaign. Just. Jacky Lorenzetti will expect much better next time. As will fans and neutrals.

Stade Francais

Seventh in the Top 14, and a Challenge Cup final in their immediate future. At one point, not so very long ago, both seemed well beyond Stade Francais’ reach. But coach Gonzalo Quesada’s final season before he takes over at Biarritz next season will extend beyond the 26 of a regular campaign. Win or lose the Challenge Cup showpiece in Edinburgh against Gloucester on Friday, Stade still have a play-off route to the Champions Cup, courtesy of that seventh position. As for the future – new coach, new president, new owner. Interesting times ahead at Stade.

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Brive

Anywhere between eighth and 10th seems to be Brive’s preferred end-of-season position. And they have managed it again. Which is nice.

Pau

The double loss of World Cup winners Colin Slade and Conrad Smith to injuries as the run-in gathered pace hit Pau harder than they’d care to admit. And more than they were able to hide. A winning run just after Christmas saw them leap into the play-off places, but they lost their way when the Slade-Smith axis was removed. A shame. They promised so much. Next season, maybe.

Lyon

Perennial yo-yo side Lyon have, this time, managed to avoid relegation this season after winning promotion at the end of the last one. And it was reasonably comfortable, too, but a last-game hammering at relegated Grenoble will really hurt. Now, the side with the sixth-largest budget in the Top 14 – more than Pau, Brive, Castres, Montpellier, and La Rochelle, who all finished above them this season – have to push on to greater heights.

Bordeaux

There’s no wonder president Laurent Marti’s patience ran out with charismatic head coach Raphael Ibanez midway through the season. While the club were in a post-Christmas freefall, the man in charge spent several punditry duty awaydays with French Six Nations broadcaster France 2. The result: Ibanez announced he was leaving at the end of the season, and spent the remaining matches of his tenure sulking behind a laptop in the stands. The club routinely attracts 30,000 crowds to Stade Chaban Delmas, and Marti believes they deserve better. He’s right, too. Bordeaux should be a top-six side. Anything less is unacceptable. For too long, Bordeaux – and Rafa, who was once a strong favourite for the France job – have delivered less.

Toulouse

For a club that regards a top-six finish and Champions Cup rugby as a divine right, 12th place and a Challenge Cup future is about as rude an awakening as it’s possible to get. But, maybe, they have finally realised that other sides, with smaller budgets and squads, are better at this game than they are. And there’s money trouble in Toulouse, too. Reports in France say that finances are so tight – and employment law so red-tapey – that head coach Ugo Mola kept his job only because getting rid of him was beyond the club’s means. To be fair to Mola, he inherited many of the problems that came home to roost all at the same time this season. But it doesn’t alter the fact that change is badly needed. Fortunately, change is afoot. It may just take a season or three to take root. So the question is: what are patience levels like at the club? There’ll be a new president in place by the time the new season kicks off, so the answer is … uncertain.

Grenoble

For several seasons, a standard Top 14 campaign for Grenoble ran as follows: Fair-to-middling, bordering on the occasionally decent until about Christmas, before falling away to lower-mid-table mediocrity in the second-half of the season. This season, they didn’t bother with the pre-Christmas bit, so the by the time the second-half decline arrived, they were already deep in the relegation mire. And it just didn’t get better. A final-weekend hammering of arch-Alpine rivals Lyon at least gave fans something to cheer about before they start contemplating the prospect of ProD2 rugby.

Bayonne

Beyond dismal and well on the road to abject. There is literally nothing good to say about Bayonne’s season. It started badly, got worse, suffered a bit of a dip, and then stalled completely before plumbing new depths. There have been worse Top 14 performances, but not many.

Watch every match of the Top 14 streaming live on rugbypass.com, home of the best online rugby coverage including news, highlights, previews & reviews, live scores, and more!

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B
BeamMeUp 1 hour ago
The Springboks have something you don't have

A few comments. Firstly, I am a Bok fan and it's been a golden period for us. I hope my fellow Bok fans appreciate this time and know that it cannot last forever, so soak it all in!


The other thing to mention (and this is targeted at Welsh, English and even Aussie supporters who might be feeling somewhat dejected) is that it's easy to forget that just before Rassie Erasmus took over in 2018, the Boks were ranked 7th in the world and I had given up hope we'd ever be world beaters again.


Sport is a fickle thing and Rassie and his team have managed to get right whatever little things it takes to make a mediocre team great. I initially worried his methods might be short-lived (how many times can you raise a person's commitment by talking about his family and his love of his country as a motivator), but he seems to have found a way. After winning in 2019 on what was a very simple game plan, he has taken things up ever year - amazing work which has to be applauded! (Dankie Rassie! Ons wardeer wat jy vir die ondersteuners en die land doen!) (Google translate if you don't understand Afrikaans! 😁)


I don't think people outside South Africa fully comprehend the enormity of the impact seeing black and white, English, Afrikaans and Xhosa and all the other hues playing together does for the country's sense of unity. It's pure joy and happiness.


This autumn tour has been a bit frustrating in that the Boks have won, but never all that convincingly. On the one hand, I'd like to have seen more decisive victories, BUT what Rassie has done is expose a huge number of players to test rugby, whilst also diversifying the way the Boks play (Tony Brown's influence).


This change of both style and personnel has resulted in a lack of cohesion at times and we've lost some of the control, whereas had we been playing our more traditional style, that wouldn't happen. This is partially attributable to the fact that you cannot play Tony Brown's expansive game whilst also having 3 players available at every contact point to clear the defence off the ball. I have enjoyed seeing the Boks play a more exciting, less attritional game, which is a boring, albeit effective spectacle. So, I am happy to be patient, because the end justifies the means (and I trust Rassie!). Hopefully all these players we are blooding will give us incredible options for substitutions come next year's Rugby Championship and of course, the big prize in 2027.


Last point! The game of rugby has never been as exciting as it is now. Any of Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, France, Argentina, Scotland, England & Australia can beat one another. South Africa may be ranked #1, but I wouldn't bet my house in them beating France or New Zealand, and we saw Argentina beating both South Africa and New Zealand this year! That's wonderful for the game and makes the victories we do get all the sweeter. Each win is 100% earned. Long may it last!


Sorry for the long post! 🏉🌍

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