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What's at stake and for who ahead of the final round of regular Top 14 season

Toulouse are looking to sign a big lock (Getty Images)

Two of the northern hemisphere’s leagues – the Premiership and Pro14 – have entered the play-off phase, but rugby’s most gruelling competition still has one more weekend to run before it is cut from 14 to six.

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Three Top 14 teams can relax. The top two, Toulouse and Clermont, have already earned themselves a week off by qualifying direct for the semi-finals in Bordeaux, so can sit back and watch four teams become two next weekend.

Lyon, meanwhile, will be involved in the qualifying play-off barrages for the right to travel to Bordeaux for the semi-finals. They have earned themselves home advantage for that one-off play-off.

That leaves four teams – Racing 92, reigning champions Castres Olympique, Montpellier, and La Rochelle -separated by three points, chasing the final three all-important play-off places … which grants them a shot at the Top 14 title and Champions Cup rugby next season.

Here are the games that really matter in the Top 14 in the final week of the regular season – when all seven matches kick off at 4.15pm (France time) on Saturday.

Agen (12th – 38pts) v Racing 92 (4th – 69pts)

On paper, this looks simple enough for moneybags Racing. But, despite their lowly league position – and because of their loss at home last weekend to Racing’s play-off rivals Castres – Agen have a point to prove. They’ll want their fans to go into the summer with a smile. This could be more difficult than many expect for the visitors – but even a defeat would not be entirely disastrous … unless Racing fail to get a bonus point and their play-off chasing rivals all win…

A note: A ‘home’ barrage match is out of the question, even if Racing hold on to fourth spot, which promises home advantage. French popstar Mylène Farmer is due to play nine shows at La Defense Arena between June 7 and June 22, and will be deep into rehearsals on barrage weekend of May 31 / June 1. If Racing are ‘at home’ for their play-off qualifier, they will relocate to their former home at Stade Yves-du-Manoir, Colombes.

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Castres Olympique (5th – 69pts) v Toulon (10th – 53pts)

Last year, Castres became the first team to finish in the sixth and final play-off spot that then went on to lift the Bouclier de Brennus. This year, they should have ensured their place in the end-of-season knockout phase before last weekend’s crucial play-off saving win at Agen.

But they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in back-to-back run-in home matches against Toulouse and Montpellier to ensure their play-off challenge became more difficult than it needed to be. Even so, their future remains in their hands. A win ensures a top-six finish. A draw or a defeat, however, leaves them watching results elsewhere, nervously.

Clermont (2nd – 82pts) v Montpellier (6th – 66pts)

You can’t ignore who they’re playing, but this game is all about Montpellier. All-but out of the play-off reckoning a couple of months ago, Vern Cotter’s side have won seven of their last eight games – the one blot on their recent copybook a one-point loss at Racing 92 – and moved back into the top six for the first time since October with a last-gasp bonus-point win over Stade Francais.

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Their record against La Rochelle this season has given Montpellier a crucial advantage going into the final weekend of the regular season. Match or better the Rochelais and a play-off place is theirs for the taking. A home barrage is not yet out of the question, either – for Montpellier or La Rochelle. But, you can’t ignore who they’re playing.

La Rochelle (7th – 66pts) v Bordeaux Bègles (9th – 57pts)

Different league, definitely not different rules. This is the match Sale fans should watch very closely. If La Rochelle can get themselves back into the top six after dropping out last week, the Premiership side will qualify for next season’s Champions Cup.

The Rochelais have already booked their seat at Europe’s top table next season, by virtue of being losing Challenge Cup finalists to Clermont, whose qualification by Top 14 league position supercedes their qualification by Challenge Cup victory. But La Rochelle have French title ambitions so will be keen to ensure their interest continues beyond this weekend.

Opponents Bordeaux blew their outside chances of qualification when they let slip a bonus-point win at home to Toulouse to finish with nothing from a game in which they had scored five tries. Frankly, they’ll be mad, and not in the mood to let their Atlantic coast rivals have it all their own way, even at Stade Marcel Deflandre.

The complicated bit

So far, so straightforward. But now the maths gets complicated. Fourth-placed Racing have the advantage over all three play-off rivals courtesy of one-on-one results this season against the three other sides in case they finish the season level on points.

Past results, meanwhile, this season favour Castres over Montpellier if those two sides finish level on points, but if La Rochelle and Castres both finish their campaigns with the same number of league points, the Rochelais will finish higher than the defending champions.

Got that?

Whatever happens, the side that finishes third will host the sixth and final placed side in the barrages, while the side that finishes fourth will play the one that ends up fifth on the weekend of May 31 / June 1.

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J
JW 6 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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