Top 14 roundup: Louis at double as Bordeaux hit back

With two rounds of the Top 14 still to play, the play-off situation is becoming increasingly clear.

Toulouse, who have scored 123 tries and 921 match points in 23 matches coming into the weekend and who are at La Rochelle tonight, were the first to be sure of a place in the play-offs.

Yesterday, Montpellier, Pau, and Stade Francais tightened their grips on tickets to the post-season knockout phase. Only Racing’s primetime win over Toulon stopped their reservations being definitively confirmed.

Champions Cup finalists Bordeaux have been busily practising second-half fightbacks over the past couple of Top 14 weekends, almost as if they expect to do so next weekend in Bilbao against Leinster.

Intense

At Bayonne last weekend, they won 38-40 having been 38-19 behind as the clock ticked past the hour. Yesterday, at their Stade Chaban Delmas home, they were 26-16 down against Perpignan three minutes before the break, and went in at half-time 26-19 down.

It was a match the home side, sixth in the table coming into the weekend, could not afford to lose.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, manager Yannick Bru had selected as many of his first-choice players as he could. And he hit the coaching button at half-time, bringing on Marko Gazzotti, Gaetan Barlot, Maxime Lucu, Yoram Moefana and Louis Bielle-Biarrey for the whole of the second half. It worked. Bielle-Biarrey worked.

He scored two, made one, and grabbed the decisive under-pressure ball 5m from his own line as Perpignan threatened to hit back with the clock in the red. His intervention ensured the game ended 37-32 in Bordeaux’s favour.

Ulster‘s Challenge Cup final opponents Montpellier, meanwhile, warmed up for Friday night’s big match with an intense and hard-fought 36-33 win at Castres, taking their late-season record to 11 wins in their last 12 outings in all competitions.

While manager Joan Caudullo will be pleased enough with the four points, which moved them up to second in the table, he and much-hyped defence coach Geoffrey Doumayrou know they have plenty to work on before they head to north-west Spain. Twice they opened up a sizeable lead – 12-0 up after 18 minutes and 33-19 clear with 25 minutes left to play. But they were hanging on for their lives at the end of a 10-try encounter.

Frustrating

Castres’ season played out in microcosm at Stade Pierre Fabre, where they lost that enthrallingly frustrating encounter against oh-so-Montpellier. They first came back from 12-0 down in the first quarter, courtesy of a double for the visitors’ centre Auguste Cadot, to go in at the break even at 19-19.

Earlier, fans witnessed a crazy end to a crazy match at Stade du Hameau, as hosts Pau made sure of a play-off place for the first time, strengthened their chances of claiming a bye to the post-season semi-finals, and maintained their unbeaten home record this season.

France winger Theo Attissogbe’s 78th-minute try to take the hosts into a 24-19 lead should have been the end of it. But Mr Reliable Jack Maddocks misjudged the clock and kicked the restart out before time was up, giving Clermont a 5m lineout. The throw-in wasn’t straight. So Pau had a scrum to win it. But Gloucester-bound scrum-half Dan Robson’s pass to replacement fly-half Axel Desperes went dead. In the face of concerted

“Bordeaux have been practising fightbacks, as if they expect to do so against Leinster”

Clermont appeals, the referee ruled it was an attempted pass that went astray, rather than a deliberate attempt to throw the ball dead. It’s a decision that may well get debated on Clermont fan forums.

Samuel Ezeala scored a hat-trick and Noah Nene got a double as Stade Francais ran 11-try riot at relegated Montauban, winning 73-25 against a side already planning for the ProD2 by blooding numerous young players.

And Bayonne’s dismal 2026 continued with a 42-35 defeat at Lyon. They have won just twice in 12 matches since the turn of the year.

Josua Tuisova scored in each half as Racing 92 kept their post-season hopes alive with a 43-28 win over Toulon, a result that also ended the visitors’ ambitions.

Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle kept their outside play-off hopes alive with a remarkable 24-26 win at Racing 92 – their first-ever at La Defense Arena – last Sunday.

That result meant they climbed to eighth in the table, six points behind sixth-placed Bordeaux heading into this weekend. They have to repeat the trick three more times before the end of the regular season, starting with their penultimate home match of the campaign, against Toulouse tonight.