It’s a bloated soap opera, most games are foregone home wins, more so than any other league in the world, and the rugby can often be physical and crassly brutal. But, sprinkled throughout with star dust, the rugby can also be utterly brilliant and the Top 14 has an on- and off-field buoyancy like no other league in the world.
With barely a pause for a summer breath, the Top 14, as usual, starts a full fortnight before the United Rugby Championship (URC) and the Premiership this weekend, amid hot French sunshine, it’s usual drama-fuelled hype, awash in money from TV and multimillionaire backers, and full stadiums.
The Ligue Nationale de Rugby recently agreed a new five-year TV deal with Canal+ for €696.8 million from 2027 to 2032, a 13.3 per cent increase on the €454.4 million four-year contract signed in 2021. The incoming deal will result in an annual payment of €139.4 million to the Top 14 clubs as well as €10.7 million per season to the 16 clubs in the ProD2, making it the most lucrative second tier league in the world by a country mile.
Although less transparent, insiders estimate that the URC, in the last year of its current deals, and the Premiership, generate in the region of €45-50 million.
The URC’s stability and growth should see an increase in TV revenue, whereas the troubled Premiership’s newest deal with TNT Sports, believed to be at a reduced rate, is for the next two seasons.
Furthermore, the average attendance for the Top 14 last season was 15,253, the highest of any competition below Test level in the global game. The Premiership had an average of 14,654 per game but that figure was inflated by three teams – Wasps, Worcester and London Irish – all going bust the previous season. Hence, the Top 14 attendances were accumulated over 188 matches, as opposed to the 93 games in the 10-club Premiership season of 2023-24.
Meanwhile, last season’s URC saw a 3 per cent increase in overall attendance to 1.69 million at its 151 matches, averaging 11,200 per game.
But what makes the French success story even more impressive is that the ProD2 drew almost 1.5 million spectators over the course of its mammoth 30-round regular season of 240 matches, at an average of 5,856 per game.
Furthermore, starting with the 2021–22 season, the Fédération Française de Rugby created a third professional league, between Pro D2 and Fédérale 1 in the club pyramid, called Nationale.
Biarritz nearly fell into the Nationale last season, but now under new ownership containing former players, ex-Munster number 8 James Coughlan has become the club’s director of rugby in the ProD2.
The Top 14 is more accessible than ever to Irish audiences. Premier Sports will again show three Top 14 games in each round, be it live or deferred, as well as their weekly highlights package, and the provinces will have a particular interest in their prospective Champions Cup opposition.
Leinster will again travel to La Rochelle in January after hosting Clermont in December, while Ulster begin away to Toulouse and at home to Bordeaux/Bègles, and Munster are at home to Stade Français and away to Castres in December. Perpignan and Lyon will be Connacht’s Top 14 opponents in the Challenge Cup.
While Ronan O’Gara’s remarkable achievements at La Rochelle have been well chronicled and Noel McNamara continues his varied and interesting coaching journey at Bordeaux/Bègles, somewhat less publicised has been the work of the former Ulster, Irish and Lions lock Jeremy Davidson.
It’s been quite the journey. Having played with Castres for three seasons at the turn of the millennium, Davidson cut his teeth as an assistant coach with the club in 2007 for two seasons. He has since coached Ulster, Aurillac, Bordeaux-Bègles, Brive and Castres.
Davidson steered Castres from relegation peril the season before last with six wins in eight matches and seventh last season, level with Stuart Lancaster’s Racing 92, but missed out on the play-offs due to points difference.
So, this will be his 15th consecutive season coaching amid the volatility of French club rugby, and for this alone he probably deserves a medal, albeit he and Lancaster start the season under pressure after an underwhelming first season in Paris for the latter and Siya Kolisi.
Much of Racing’s hopes will rest on the arrival of Owen Farrell. Being freed of England duties should help him adapt as he also looks to impress his father in earning Lions’ recognition to Australia next summer.
Farrell heads a further flight of wild geese-like proportions from the Premiership, with Manu Tuilagi at Bayonne after their failed pursuit of the more durable Stuart McCloskey, Billy Vunipola at Montpellier, Kyle Sinckler at an improving Toulon and Mako Vunipola at newly promoted Vannes, South American-infused Brittany club who will play in the Top 14 for the first time.
French sides have claimed the last four Champions Cup triumphs, and there was plenty of pain but scant shame in Leinster’s Champions Cup final loss to Toulouse after extra time last May in London. Five weeks later Toulouse completed their third double, and second in the last four seasons, by filleting Bordeaux-Bègles by 59-3 in the final. It was a record final margin in the 132-year history of the competition to add a record-extending 23rd French title to their record-extending sixth Champions Cup.
That was their fourth Bouclier de Brennus in the last five seasons and nine of the other Top 14 coaches have tipped them to win the title again. The infusion of home-grown academy players such as Joshua Brennan, Mathis Castro-Ferreira and centre Paul Costes was key to last season’s success and, allowing for the left field signing of Japanese scrumhalf Naoto Saito, it’s been another summer of stability. Très Toulousain.
Best placed to mount a challenge would appear to be the same quartet as last season, namely La Rochelle, Bordeaux-Bègles, Toulon and Stade Français, whose signing of outhalf Louis Carbonel from Montpellier could see last season’s least potent attack improve to augment the Top 14′s best defence.
A Clermont resurgence seems unlikely while Lyon (who have hired Jono Gibbes on a part-time consultancy basis), Perpignan, Pau, Bayonne and Montpelier, with a new inexperienced coaching ticket under Bernard Laporte, could be anything from play-off to relegation contenders.
Last season’s final is more likely to have inspired rather than scarred Bordeaux-Bègles, Joey Carbery’s new club. Time was when Paddy Jackson and Carbery would each have been anointed as the heirs apparent to Johnny Sexton. But on foot of his move to Bordeaux-Bègles, Carbery could conceivably come up against Jackson, now 32, who was one of Lyon’s main redeeming lights last season.
Toulouse proved to be La Rochelle’s bêtes noires again with a 39-23 win in last season’s semi-finals a week before the final. That was La Rochelle’s fifth knockout defeat against Toulouse in the last four seasons, including previous French Championships finals in 2021 and 2023.
After their breakthrough Champions Cup triumphs in 2022 and 2023, it had seemed as if O’Gara might be facing something of a rebuilding job as a great side grew old together. But not just yet, for the old guard have remained intact.
Uini Atonio (34) and Réda Wardi (29) are signed on, as are Levani Botia (35), Will Skelton (32), the 31-year-old wingers Dillyn Leyds and Jack Nowell, centre UJ Seuteni, Gregory Alldritt and ex-Connacht and Irish lock Ultan Dillane.
La Rochelle have been the least active in the transfer market, with 35-year-old ex-Wallabies lock Kane Douglas the only recruit from elsewhere for this season. However, O’Gara has made an eye-catching capture for the future, with the brilliant Racing 92 and France scrumhalf Nolann le Garrec set to arrive at the end of this season when the contract of Tawera Kerr-Barlow expires.
But, for this season, it’s once more into the breach.
Notable new signings in the 2023-24 Top 14
Bordeaux/Bègles: Joey Carbery from Munster.
Bayonne: Manu Tuilagi from Sale. Jonny Gray from Exeter.
Clermont: Michael Ala’alatoa from Leinster.
Montpellier: Billy Vunipola from Saracens. Stuart Hogg out of retirement.
Racing 92: Owen Farrell from Saracens.
Toulon: Kyle Sinckler from Bristol. Antoine Frisch from Munster. Dan Brennan from Brive.
Toulouse: Naoto Saito from Tokyo Sungoliath.
Vannes: Mako Vunipola from Saracens.
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