2013–14 Top 14 season

2013–14 Top 14
Countries	France
Date	16 August 2013 – 31 May 2014
Champions	Toulon
Runners-up	Castres Olympique
Relegated	Perpignan Biarritz Olympique
Matches played	187
Attendance	2,678,932 (average 14,326 per match)
Tries scored	607 (average 3.246 per match)
Top point scorer	Gaëtan Germain (Brive) 299 points[1]
Top try scorer	Metuisela Talebula (Bordeaux Bègles) 15 tries[1]
Official website
www.lnr.fr
← 2012–13 2014–15 →

The 2013–14 Top 14 competition is a French domestic rugby union club competition operated by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR). Two new teams from the 2012–13 Pro D2 season were promoted to Top 14 this year, Oyonnax and Brive in place of the two relegated teams, Agen and Mont-de-Marsan. Home-and-away play began on 16 August 2013 and continued through to 3 May 2014.^[2]

The regular season was very closely fought, with a record few away wins, but ended up with the same six teams qualifying for the play-offs as the previous year. Toulon topped the table for the first time, one point clear of second-placed Montpellier, whilst defending champions Castres just managed to hold on to the last qualifying spot, finishing in sixth. At the other end of the table, Biarritz had a nightmarish season, spending virtually the whole year in the relegation zone, and finished bottom, while Perpignan, who had been in the top tier of French rugby since 1911, were also relegated. Oyonnax and Brive finished 12th and 9th, respectively, marking the first time since 2007 that both newly promoted teams managed to keep their places in the Top 14.

The quarter-final stage saw two major upsets, with Racing Métro avenging their loss from the previous year with a 21–16 away win at Toulouse, whose run of twenty consecutive semi-final appearances thus came to end, while Castres put an end to Clermont's record streak of 77 straight wins at Stade Marcel Michelin with a 22–16 win. This is the first time that both quarterfinals have resulted in away wins.

Teams

Club	Full name	City (department)	Stadium
Aviron Bayonnais	Aviron Bayonnais	Bayonne (Pyrénées-Atlantiques)	Stade Jean Dauger[a 1]
Biarritz Olympique	Biarritz Olympique Pays Basque	Biarritz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques)	Parc des Sports Aguiléra[a 2]
Union Bordeaux Bègles	Union Bordeaux Bègles	Bordeaux (Gironde)	Stade Chaban-Delmas (Bordeaux) Stade André Moga (Bègles)[a 3]
CA Brive	Club athlétique Brive Corrèze Limousin	Brive-la-Gaillarde (Corrèze)	Stade Amédée-Domenech
Castres Olympique	Castres Olympique	Castres (Tarn)	Stade Pierre-Antoine
ASM Clermont Auvergne	Association Sportive Montferrandaise Clermont Auvergne	Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme)	Parc des Sports Marcel Michelin
FC Grenoble	Football Club Grenoble Rugby	Grenoble (Isère)	Stade Lesdiguières[a 4]
Montpellier Hérault Rugby	Montpellier Hérault Rugby	Montpellier (Hérault)	Stade Yves-du-Manoir
Oyonnax Rugby	Union sportive Oyonnax Rugby	Oyonnax (Ain)	Stade Charles-Mathon
USA Perpignan	Union Sportive Arlequins Perpignanais	Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales)	Stade Aimé Giral[a 5]
Racing Métro 92	Racing Métro 92	Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine)	Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir[a 6]
Stade Français Paris	Stade Français Club Athlétique des Sports Généraux	Paris, 16th arrondissement	Stade Jean-Bouin[a 7]
RC Toulonnais	Rugby Club Toulonnais	Toulon (Var)	Stade Mayol[a 8]
Stade Toulousain	Stade Toulousain	Toulouse (Haute-Garonne)	Stade Ernest-Wallon[a 9]

Competition format

The top six teams at the end of the regular season (after all the teams played one another twice, once at home, once away) enter a knockout stage to decide the Champions of France. This consists of three rounds: the teams finishing third to sixth in the table play quarter-finals (hosted by the third and fourth placed teams). The winners then face the top two teams in the semi-finals, with the winners meeting in the final at Stade de France.^[6]

The LNR uses a slightly different bonus points system from that used in most other rugby competitions. It trialled a new system in 2007–08 explicitly designed to prevent a losing team from earning more than one bonus point in a match,^[7] a system that also made it impossible for either team to earn a bonus point in a drawn match. LNR chose to continue with this system for subsequent seasons.^[8]

France's bonus point system operates as follows:^[8]

• 4 points for a win.
• 2 points for a draw.
• 1 bonus point for winning while scoring at least 3 more tries than the opponent. This replaces the standard bonus point for scoring 4 tries regardless of the match result.
• 1 bonus point for losing by 7 points (or less).

Table

2013–14 Top 14 Table
	Club	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Points For	Points Against	Points Difference	Tries For	Tries Against	Try Bonus	Losing Bonus	Points
1	Toulon (CH)	26	16	1	9	660	466	+194	54	27	5	6	77
2	Montpellier (SF)	26	15	1	10	670	525	+145	59	46	7	7	76
3	Clermont Auvergne (QF)	26	15	1	10	659	500	+159	59	37	6	5	73
4	Toulouse (QF)	26	13	2	11	548	442	+106	53	30	7	6	69[n 1]
5	Racing Métro (SF)	26	15	2	9	459	448	+11	32	34	1	4	69
6	Castres Olympique (RU)	26	13	2	11	567	488	+79	50	35	6	4	66
7	Stade Français	26	14	1	11	529	496	+33	46	46	3	4	65
8	Bordeaux Bègles	26	13	0	13	629	573	+56	58	44	5	7	64
9	Brive	26	11	2	13	473	476	-3	32	36	4	9	61
10	Bayonne	26	11	1	14	424	549	-125	29	48	1	7	54
11	Grenoble	26	11	2	13	465	625	-160	32	52	1	4	53
12	Oyonnax	26	11	1	14	456	562	-106	34	49	1	4	51[n 2]
13	Perpignan (R)	26	10	1	15	486	593	-107	35	48	2	7	51
14	Biarritz Olympique (R)	26	5	1	20	374	656	-282	27	68	0	8	30
If teams are level at any stage, tiebreakers are applied in the following order: Competition points earned in head-to-head matches Points difference in head-to-head matches Try differential in head-to-head matches Points difference in all matches Try differential in all matches Points scored in all matches Tries scored in all matches Fewer matches forfeited' Classification in the previous Top 14 season
Green background (rows 1 and 2) receive semi-final play-off places and receive berths in the 2014–15 European Rugby Champions Cup. Yellow background (rows 3 and 4) receive home quarter-final play-off places, and receive berths in the Champions Cup. Blue background (rows 5 and 6) receive away quarter-final play-off places, and will also receive Champions Cup berths. Orange background (row 7) indicates team that advances to a play-off against the seventh-place team from the English Premiership for a place in the Champions Cup. Red background (row 13 and 14) will be relegated to Rugby Pro D2. Updated 31 May 2014 Source: ESPN Scrum
↑ Toulouse won the head-to-head matches with Racing Métro 5 – 4 on match points so rank higher. ↑ Oyonnax and Perpignan each gained 4 match points from their head-to-head games; Oyonnax won 34 – 31 on aggregate points so rank higher.

Relegation

Normally, the teams that finish in 13th and 14th places in the table are relegated to Pro D2 at the end of the season. In certain circumstances, "financial reasons" may cause a higher placed team to be demoted instead. This last happened at the end of the 2009–10 season when 12th place Montauban were relegated thereby reprieving 13th place Bayonne.

Fixtures

After the General Assembly of the Ligue Nationale de Rugby, held at Aix-en-Provence on 5 and 6 July 2013, the outline calendar of fixtures for the 2013–14 season were released.^[9] Detailed fixtures information evolves as the season progresses (i.e. specific kick off times).^[2] Match attendances are from the official web site (Affluences).^[10]

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Round 10

Round 11

Round 12

Round 13

Round 14

Round 15

Round 16

Round 17

• This match was postponed due to heavy rain. Despite the pitch being covered since Friday, the referee took the decision to cancel the match.^[11] It has been rescheduled to 14 March.^[2]

Round 18

Round 19

• This match was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.^[12] It has been rescheduled to 5 April.^[2]

Round 20

Round 21

Round 17 rescheduled match

• This match – originally scheduled to be played on 25 January 2014 – was postponed due to heavy rain.^[11]

Round 22

Round 23

• This result means that Biarritz Olympique will finish the season at the bottom of the table.

Round 19 rescheduled match

• This match – originally scheduled to be played on 15 February 2014 – was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.^[12]

Round 24

Round 25

Round 26

Playoffs

	Quarterfinals					Semifinals					Final
						1	Toulon	16
	4	Toulouse	16			5	Racing Métro	6
	5	Racing Métro	21								1	Toulon	18
											6	Castres Olympique	10
						2	Montpellier	19
	3	Clermont	16			6	Castres Olympique	22
	6	Castres Olympique	22

All times are in Central European Summer Time (UTC+2).

Quarter-finals

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Semi-finals

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Final

FB 15 Delon Armitage RW 14 Drew Mitchell OC 13 Mathieu Bastareaud IC 12 Matt Giteau LW 11 Bryan Habana FH 10 Jonny Wilkinson (c) SH 9 Sebastien Tillous-Borde N8 8 Steffon Armitage OF 7 Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe BF 6 Juan Smith RL 5 Ali Williams LL 4 Bakkies Botha  58' TP 3 Carl Hayman  66' HK 2 Craig Burden  29' LP 1 Xavier Chiocci  51' Substitutions: HK 16 Jean-Charles Orioli  29' PR 17 Alexandre Menini  51' LK 18 Jocelino Suta  58' N8 19 Danie Rossouw FL 20 Virgile Bruni CE 21 Maxime Mermoz SH 22 Michael Claassens PR 23 Martin Castrogiovanni  66' Coach: Bernard Laporte

FB 15 Brice Dulin RW 14 Max Evans OC 13 Romain Cabannes  63' IC 12 Rémi Lamerat LW 11 Rémi Grosso FH 10 Rémi Talès (c)  20'  25'  67' SH 9 Rory Kockott  77' N8 8 Antonie Claassen OF 7 Yannick Caballero  52' BF 6 Piula Faasalele RL 5 Rodrigo Capó Ortega LL 4 Richie Gray  52' TP 3 Ramiro Herrera  74' HK 2 Brice Mach  58' LP 1 Yannick Forestier  52' Substitutions: HK 16 Mathieu Bonello  58' PR 17 Saimone Taumoepeau  51' LK 18 Christophe Samson  52' N8 19 Jannie Bornman  52' SH 20 Cédric Garcia  77' CE 21 Seremaia Bai  63' FH 22 Daniel Kirkpatrick  20'  25'  67' PR 23 Mihaita Lazăr  74' Coach: Serge Milhas

Touch judges: Romain Poite Sébastien Minery Television match official: Laurent Valin

Top scorers

Note: Flags to the left of player names indicate national team as has been defined under IRB eligibility rules, or primary nationality for players who have not yet earned international senior caps. Players may hold one or more non-IRB nationalities.

Top points scorers Rank Player Team Points[1] 1 Gaëtan Germain Brive 299 2 Pierre Bernard Bordeaux Bègles 294 3 Jonny Wilkinson Toulon 267 4 Rory Kockott Castres Olympique 252 5 James Hook Perpignan 248 6 Benjamín Urdapilleta Oyonnax 239 7 Brock James Clermont 220 Martin Bustos Moyano Bayonne 9 Jonathan Sexton Racing Métro 214 10 Benoît Paillaugue Montpellier 170

Top try scorers Rank Player Team Tries[1] 1 Metuisela Talebula Bordeaux Bègles 15 2 Matt Giteau Toulon 10 Timoci Nagusa Montpellier Silvère Tian Oyonnax 5 Hosea Gear Toulouse 9 Sofiane Guitoune Perpignan Josevata Rokocoko Bayonne 8 Napolioni Nalaga Clermont 8 Waisea Nayacalevu Stade Français 10 Alex Tulou Montpellier 7

Notes and references

See also

• 2013–14 Rugby Pro D2 season
• List of 2013-2014 Top 14 transfers

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Top 14 2013-2014.

• (French) Ligue Nationale de Rugby – Official website
• (French) Midi Olympique
• Top 14 on ESPN Scrum
• Top 14 on Planet Rugby

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