Top 14 Preseason Power Rankings 2025-2026: Toulouse Stays On Top
Top 14 Preseason Power Rankings 2025-2026: Toulouse Stays On Top
French rugby’s toughest league returns. Can Toulouse hold off Bordeaux, La Rochelle and Toulon? See our full Top 14 preseason power rankings.
The French Top 14 is the most competitive domestic rugby league on the planet, where giants clash weekly and underdogs thrive on home passion.
- Subscribe To FloRugby To Watch The 2025-2026 Top 14 Rugby Season
- The 100 Best Rugby Players In The World: The Full List
- United Rugby Championship Schedule: Here's Every URC Fixture
As always, Toulouse headlines the Preseason Power Rankings, but Bordeaux, La Rochelle and Toulon aren’t far behind.
Clubs like Bayonne and Pau are ready to punch above their weight, while newly promoted Montauban will fight to survive.
With galácticos, rising French internationals and high-pressure knockout chases, the Top 14 promises another dramatic season.
1. Stade Toulousain
Four Top 14 titles and two Investec Champions Cup crowns in the past five seasons see Antoine Dupont’s Stade Toulousain enter this season as our No. 1 side.
Losing their generational leader (Dupont) to a nasty injury, Les Rouge et Noir barely missed a beat.
Slipping up at the semifinal stages of the Champions Cup to the eventual champion, Union Bordeaux-Bègles, was the only real blemish on their incredibly impressive season.
Rebounding well to see off UBB in the Top 14 final, Ugo Mola’s side sent a stark reminder that Stade Toulousain still is the No. 1 force in club rugby.
2. Union Bordeaux-Bègles
Sacré bleu!
Yes, UBB fans, we can hear you from here!
As the reigning Champions Cup winner, UBB certainly has a case to be the top-ranked team heading into this season.
Yet, for us, Toulouse and Leinster, on paper, have the stronger and deeper squads.
Still, the margins are razor-thin, and Yannick Bru’s side no doubt will be there, or thereabouts, come the business end of the season.
3. Stade Rochelais
You should’ve killed me while you could!
That is the sentiment that Ronan O’Gara’s two-time Investec Champions Cup side will be running through its mind all season.
Now reloaded and back for more, Stade Rochelais looks to be a frightening prospect.
Adding star scrumhalf Nolann Le Garrec and world-class Georgian international fullback Davit Niniashvili immediately improves Les Maritimes in key positions where they got very old, very quickly last season.
Add in a pair of highly touted and exciting youngsters in Semi Lagivala and Ugo Pacome, and the Stade Rochelais back line could be an altogether different prospect this season.
Should rumors be believed, O’Gara might not be done with the additions, as arguably the best inside center in World Rugby, Italian international Tommaso Menoncello, might be on the way to the French Atlantic.
4. RC Toulon
On paper, the three-time Champions Cup winners once again have a stacked squad that should compete in the knockout stages of both the Top 14 and Champions Cup.
Had it not been for a late Thomas Ramos penalty, we could well have seen Toulon in a Champions Cup semifinal - and then who knows.
If RCT is to deliver on its potential, it will need to avoid the sustained slumps it endured last season. These multi-match stretches cost them dearly and need to be their focus this season.
On the transfer front, Italian star Ignacio Brex and England No. 8 Zach Mercer both were clever pieces of business by the Côte d'Azur club.
5. Bayonne
Building on its brilliant 2024-2025 season, Bayonne has added a handful of strong recruits that should keep the team in the hunt for the Top 14 playoffs once again this season.
How they balance the return to the Champions Cup will go a long way to deciding how strong they can be at the end of the Top 14 season.
In bringing in Wallabies backrow Rob Leota, Springboks scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies and Welsh international fly-half Gareth Anscombe, Bayonne has added crucial top-quality depth.
6. ASM Clermont
Headlining the team's offseason signings with an All Black fly-half in Harry Plummer, Les Jaunards are backing consistency heading into this season.
At times, Christophe Urios’s side felt on the verge of breaking out in a major way as contenders.
Expecting to harness this potential, ASM is directly reflected by young captain Baptiste Jauneau.
The once-capped French international has, at times, been compared to Antoine Dupont.
He's 21-years-old and is at a key juncture where he needs to take a step forward. Should he do so alongside Plummer, then we expect ASM to a threat for the Top 14 title.
7. Castres Olympique
One of the surprise packages in last season’s Champions Cup, Castres’ quarterfinal appearance in conjunction with its Top 14 Barrage appearance meant the season was a success.
Overall, this is a tough club to fully project, but overall, the team still has a strong enough squad to compete for a similar return to what it had last season.
On the signing front, Fijian Vuate Karawalevu has all of the makings of the next great Fijian winger in the Top 14.
8. Section Paloise
In rugby’s most glamorous league, Pau is not among the high rollers of Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Paris, Toulouse and Toulon in the prestige stakes.
What the team is, however, is a damn good rugby team that can mix it with the big boys on its day.
Adding a pair of Los Pumas veterans in Julian Montoya and Facundo Isa should add a hard edge to their pack this season.
Across the board, the Pyrénées-Atlantiques-based club has quality, if slightly unheralded, players, with young French international Emilien Gailleton as their marquee player.
Still just 22-years-old, Gailleton has become one of the most exciting prospects in the game over the past 18 months.
9. Montpellier
Often in the news for the wrong reasons with players (and administrators) caught up in off-pitch controversy, Montpellier is a tough side to assess.
Watching a raft of key players depart, and then replacing them mainly with veteran players who are a touch below the top line, makes us think the team once again will be a middle-of-the-road team.
Of their signings, Scottish international Ali Price and Welsh lock Adam Beard are the headliners.
10. Racing 92
Getting the checkbook out once again, the flashy Parisians are hoping to buy their way to a title in the same way they have done for the past decade.
Landing Wallabies star tighthead Taniela ‘The Tongan Thor’ Tupou was a solid bit of business.
Mixing in former rugby league star Joey Manu is an interesting subplot to track, but on the whole, it feels very much a case of same old, same old for Jacky Lorenzetti’s side, which saw another global star in Owen Farrell walk out the door a season after Siya Kolisi did the same.
In response, Lorenzetti has hammered the former England captain in the press as he did with Kolisi.
In short, Lorenzetti is the Jerry Jones of rugby, unwilling to see that for all of his side’s commercial success, the on-field product is miles behind the true contenders in the Top 14.
11. Stade Français Paris
Finishing two spots below its crosstown rival (Racing 92), Stade had a season to forget.
Heading into this season, it is tough to see where the team has gotten any better.
Losing powerhouse lock JJ van der Mescht and Portuguese flyer Raffaele Costa Storti was disappointing.
On the transfer front, former All Black and La Rochelle scrumhalf Tawera Kerr-Barlow was their biggest addition. Overall, Stade looks set for another tough season.
12. Lyon
Last season’s losing EPRC Challenge Cup finalist pulled off a real coup this offseason with the signing of Fijian star Jiuta Wainiqolo.
Arguably a top-5 winger in world rugby, the former Toulon man is an upgrade on the departing Semi Radradra.
Former England international Sam Simmonds is a solid operator and no doubt will add some punch to their back row.
On the whole, however, Lyon’s departing players, in particular Davit Niniashvili, Tomas Lavanini and Martin Page-Relo, mean Lyon is a touch weaker across the board this season.
13. Perpignan
Making a late push with Wallaby center and former NFL prospect Jordan Petaia to add a sprinkling of star dust to their squad, Perpignan is an interesting outfit.
Finishing 13th last season hardly was anything to write home about.
In addition to Petaia, perhaps the best-proven commodity the Pyrénées-Orientales added was Scotland international Jamie Ritchie.
Across the board, USAP has a squad full of proven commodities and should be targeting a midtable finish.
14. Montauban
Newly promoted to the Top 14 courtesy of Vannes' relegation, last season’s sixth-place regular-season finisher in the Pro D2 went on a magical run to the title in the knockout stages, upsetting Colomiers, Brive and Grenoble in successive weekends.
Now set for the big time, Montauban is a wild card heading into the Top 14 this season.
On paper, the squad should be looking to avoid relegation and then grow from there.
How To Watch Rugby Matches In The United States On FloRugby
Professional club rugby in Europe all streams on FloRugby and the FloSports app in the United States. FloRugby and FloSports also are the U.S. home to:
- United Rugby Championship
- PREM Rugby
- Top 14
- Investec Champions Cup
- EPCR Challenge Cup
- Currie Cup
- Super Rugby
- And more
FloRugby also is home to match archives and match replays.