Top 14 Round 6 Preview: Bayonne An Unlikely Table-Topper; A Rematch Looms
Top 14 Round 6 Preview: Bayonne An Unlikely Table-Topper; A Rematch Looms
Round 6 of the 2025-2026 Top 14 season preview, with Aviron Bayonne topping the table following a dominant win over Stade Toulousain in Round 5.
Derby Day and a rematch of last year’s final are on the docket this weekend in the Top 14 calendar. What more could you ask for?
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Round 6 in the Top 14 will be bookended by two fixtures with major storylines.
Bayonne, which is in sole possession of first place in the French league, despite holding a negative point differential, has a rivalry showdown on the road to open up the weekend in a major test of its mettle.
To close out the round, Toulouse and Bordeaux Begles — which have met in each of the past two Top 14 finals — square off again in what should be another pulsating edition in their budding rivalry.
Oh, and we also have to talk about a Clermont team that just scored 84 points in the highest-scoring match in league history.
The action in the Top 14 is heating up, and Round 6 promises to be one of the most exciting rounds of the still-young season.
Here’s a look at the weekend of rugby action on tap on the Top 14 calendar, streamed live and exclusively in the United States on FloRugby:
NOTE: All times Eastern.
Bayonne At Pau, Saturday At 8:30 a.m.
Bayonne is simply finding ways to eke out points week after week, and it could be what propels the club to a historic domestic campaign.
Despite having a negative point differential and the third-most tries allowed (19) in the competition this season, Bayonne is, somehow, in sole possession of the top spot in the Top 14 table after five weeks on 16 points.
L’Aviron has won its four matches by a combined 27 points, the biggest one of which — literally and figuratively — without question came last weekend against three-time defending French champion Toulouse in a 40-26 result that saw Bayonne unleash a three-try flurry in the final 10 minutes.
The intensity won’t be dialed down at all for Bayonne in Round 6, however, as it’ll kick off the weekend with a derby against Pyrenees neighbor Pau, a team that would love nothing more than to snatch a big win over a rival and come back with a vengeance following a defeat last weekend to Toulon.
Pau also has been hovering around the top half of the table all season and currently sits two points out of first place in sixth, so the stakes are high for Pau to make the moves to cause a standings shakeup.
Montpellier At Racing 92, Saturday At 10:35 a.m.
Montpellier has somewhat quietly been one of the most impressive teams in the Top 14 over the past few weeks. In a three-round span, the squad has knocked off Toulouse and La Rochelle by big margins.
Two defeats and a draw in which they hugely underperformed against Montauban are why Les Cistes aren’t currently jostling among the league leaders, as they sit in eighth place, but in a tight table with a lot of room for potential shakeups, Montpellier has the potential to play a spoiler role throughout the season.
Montpellier looked great against La Rochelle in a 37-13 triumph last weekend, allowing a try in the seventh minute, before locking down its half the rest of the way in an impressive performance.
The victors will be looking to parlay that and make it a four-match unbeaten run against a Racing side reeling after a defeat last weekend to Castres.
No team in the league kicks the ball more than Montpellier (146), so look for the visitors to be active with the feet at the Paris La Defence Arena this weekend, as a leap up to the top half with a strong performance is within reach.
Castres At Montauban, Saturday At 10:35 a.m.
Castres snapped Racing 92’s three-match win streak with a 20-16 victory last weekend, making it two wins from three matches as it tries to climb up the rungs of the Top 14 ladder.
It’ll get a major opportunity to do just that — even on the road — this weekend against what’s appearing to be a historically bad Montauban defense.
Though it was a feel-good story that Montauban made it back to the French top flight for the first time in 15 years this summer with an unlikely promotion playoff win, the Top 14 has shown absolutely no mercy to the newbies, as they have conceded a staggering 36 tries through their first five matches, the most in the competition by 15.
A Round 4 draw, and a pointless Perpignan team, have kept Montauban in the safe zone and out of the automatic relegation spot for now, though it may quickly find itself underwater should the team's defensive problems continue at this pace.
Here’s the potential good news for Montauban: Castres has often taken a while to get going in matches this season, as evidenced last weekend when it didn’t score a try until the 73rd minute, followed by another in added time.
Should Montauban be able to hold off the visitors for just long enough, the hosts' attack could start to get to work and find ways to find crucial points for the standings.
La Rochelle At Stade Francais, Saturday At 10:35 a.m.
Stade Francais has won back-to-back matches in strong fashion to find itself in second place entering Round 6.
The Parisians will be aiming to keep their strong run of form going at home against La Rochelle in a clash between established Top 14 clubs looking to make their mark with a big early-season victory.
Stade didn’t look like it was in any trouble last weekend in a visit to Perpignan, rolling to a 21-3 halftime lead and eventually securing a 17-point victory on the road, as South African center Jeremy Ward notched a first-half brace to put the pressure on league leader Bayonne.
Meanwhile, at La Rochelle, 11th place is not where the club wants to be, and though that comes with the caveat that it has one less match played than many of its league counterparts due to a postponed game earlier in the season, Ronan O’Gara’s men still are searching for a signature victory to lock themselves in as true Top 14 contenders.
They have a major opportunity to get exactly that this weekend in Paris, though their organization and cohesion must be better after a blowout loss in Round 5 to Montpellier.
Perpignan At Lyon, Saturday At 10:35 a.m.
We’re barely a month into the Top 14 season, but it already might start to be panic time for Perpignan.
With no points scored, and the weakest attack in the league (eight tries), Perpignan is anchored to the bottom of the standings and is 10 points adrift of automatic safety, a bad position to be in, considering first place and 12th place are only separated by six points.
Stade Francais cruised past a Perpignan side that was at home last weekend by a 28-11 scoreline, and the opportunities for the latter to build some momentum and get out of the danger zone are fading fast.
That makes going to Lyon this weekend and getting some points even more imperative, but seventh-place LOU — which has lost two matches on the bounce to Pau and Bordeaux Begles — will be entering this weekend knowing it has a big chance to get out of its mini-slump and be back up among the league leaders.
Playing a full 80-minute match will be crucial; scrum-half Esteban Gonzalez had a brace last weekend against Bordeaux, but it was for naught as, despite a 20-17 Lyon lead with under 15 minutes to play, his team folded late, while Bordeaux snatched two late tries.
Toulon At Clermont, Saturday At 3 p.m.
We said in last week’s preview that the weaponry was there for Clermont to do some serious damage in Round 5’s fixture against Montauban.
You would’ve been hard-pressed, though, to find someone who could’ve predicted the wild match that eventually did transpire.
Clermont prevailed over the recently promoted side in a match that finished at a wild 84-31 — with the 115 combined points making for the highest-scoring match in Top 14 history.
Les Jaunards scored a head-spinning 12 tries, with only one player on the squad (Joris Jurand) getting a brace.
It was exactly the type of performance Clermont needed against a fellow squad staving away potential relegation, as while it didn’t move off of 12th place, Clermont did build its lead over 13th-place Montauban to eight points, with a bonus-point victory that could prove crucial down the line.
As for Toulon, it also had a big Round 5, knocking off second-place Pau in a 33-17 triumph, rocketing itself up to third place in the table and two points out of first place, despite playing one fewer match than much of the rest of the league thus far.
The obvious goal for the visitors will be to make sure Clermont’s attackers don’t get going easily like they did against Montauban, and Toulon has a stout defense ready to do just that, as it has only conceded six tries in four matches this season.
Bordeaux Begles At Toulouse, Sunday At 3:05 p.m.
Tied together as the current giants of French rugby, the first Bordeaux Begles-Toulouse meeting of the 2025-2026 Top 14 season has been highly anticipated for a long time.
In a primetime spot worthy of closing off the action in Round 6, Bordeaux Begles and Toulouse will be meeting on a rugby pitch for the first time since the Top 14 final in late June, when the latter got over the line in extra time thanks to the boot of Thomas Ramos to clinch its third league title in a row and 24th French championship overall.
And while Bordeaux Begles has its own silverware to be proud of — being that it’ll enter this year’s EPCR Champions Cup competition as the trophy holder — the group hasn’t been able to get the job done at the domestic level yet, as Toulouse has stopped UBB in the league final two years running.
Going to Toulouse and knocking off the four-peat-chasing champions in their own backyard would be a major result for Bordeaux and a major boost in confidence for its hunt not just for a first French title, but a potentially historic domestic-European double with it.
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