2015–16 Top 14 season

2015–16 Top 14
Countries	France
Date	22 August 2015 – 24 June 2016
Matches played	92
Attendance	1,226,031 (average 13,326 per match)
Tries scored	373 (average 4.054 per match)
Top point scorer	Gaëtan Germain (Brive) (171 points)
Top try scorer	Alex Tulou (Castres) (7 tries)
Official website
www.lnr.fr
← 2014–15 2016–17 →

The 2015–16 Top 14 competition is a French domestic rugby union club competition operated by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR). Two new teams from the 2014–15 Pro D2 season were promoted to Top 14 this year, Agen and Pau in place of the two relegated teams, Bayonne and Lyon. Home-and-away play will begin on 22 August 2015 and will continue through to 23 May 2016. This will be followed by a playoff stage involving the top six teams, culminating in the final on 24 June 2016 at the Camp Nou in Barcelona, Spain. The final was moved from its traditional site of the Stade de France in Saint-Denis because of a scheduling conflict with UEFA Euro 2016.^[1]

Teams

Club	Full name	City (department)	Stadium
SU Agen	Sporting Union Agen Lot-et-Garonne	Agen (Lot-et-Garonne)	Stade Armandie
Union Bordeaux Bègles	Union Bordeaux Bègles	Bordeaux (Gironde)	Stade Chaban-Delmas (Bordeaux) Stade André Moga (Bègles)[a 1]
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 des Alpes[a 2]
Montpellier Hérault Rugby	Montpellier Hérault Rugby	Montpellier (Hérault)	Altrad Stadium
Oyonnax Rugby	Union Sportive Oyonnax Rugby	Oyonnax (Ain)	Stade Charles-Mathon
Section Paloise	Section Paloise Béarn Pyrénées	Pau (Pyrénées-Atlantiques)	Stade du Hameau
Racing 92	Racing 92	Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine)	Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir[a 3]
Stade Rochelais	Atlantique Stade Rochelais	La Rochelle (Charente-Maritime)	Stade Marcel-Deflandre
Stade Français Paris	Stade Français Club Athlétique des Sports Généraux	Paris, 16th arrondissement	Stade Jean-Bouin
RC Toulonnais	Rugby Club Toulonnais	Toulon (Var)	Stade Mayol[a 4]
Stade Toulousain	Stade Toulousain	Toulouse (Haute-Garonne)	Stade Ernest-Wallon[a 5]

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.

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,^[4] 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.^[5]

France's bonus point system operates as follows:^[5]

• 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 5 points (or fewer). The margin had been 7 points until being changed prior to the 2014–15 season.

Table

2015–16 Top 14 Table
	Club	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Points For	Points Against	Points Difference	Tries For	Tries Against	Try Bonus	Losing Bonus	Points
1	Racing	13	10	1	2	270	225	+45	26	16	1	0	43
2	Toulouse	13	9	0	4	363	176	+187	43	17	4	3	43
3	Toulon	14	8	0	6	416	272	+144	48	24	5	4	41
4	Clermont	13	7	1	5	340	234	+106	32	18	5	4	39
5	Bordeaux	14	8	1	5	290	265	+25	19	19	1	2	37
6	Brive	13	8	0	5	252	211	+41	14	15	1	3	36
7	Montpellier	13	8	0	5	332	318	+14	33	27	3	1	36
8	Castres	13	7	0	6	294	273	+21	30	20	3	2	33
9	Grenoble	13	6	0	7	323	343	−20	33	37	3	1	28
10	La Rochelle	13	5	0	8	264	301	−37	24	23	2	4	26
11	Stade Français	13	5	0	8	245	285	−40	19	24	0	2	22
12	Pau	13	4	1	8	207	370	−163	15	43	0	2	20
13	Oyonnax	13	3	0	10	220	411	−191	18	46	2	0	14
14	Agen	13	2	0	11	259	391	−132	19	35	0	2	10
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 2016–17 European Rugby Champions Cup. Blue background (rows 3 to 6) receive quarter-final play-off places, and receive berths in the Champions Cup. Yellow background (row 7) indicates the team that may qualify for the 2016–17 European Rugby Champions Cup. To facilitate the 2015 Rugby World Cup, there will be no play-offs for the Champions Cup with the 20th place going to the winner of the 2015–16 European Rugby Challenge Cup if not already qualified. Plain background indicates teams that earn a place in the European Rugby Challenge Cup. Red background (row 13 and 14) will be relegated to Rugby Pro D2. Updated 14 February 2016

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

The outline fixtures schedule was announced in May 2015.

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

Due to the terrorist attacks that took place in Paris on 13 November 2015, matches in the European Rugby Champions Cup and European Rugby Challenge Cup were postponed to a later date – later announced to take place on the weekend of 8–10 January 2016. This meant the fixtures that featured those teams in their respective domestic leagues, were postponed to a later date.^[30] This meant that the entire Round 13 schedule was postponed: one match was moved to mid-February, and the remaining six matches were moved to mid-March.^[31]

Round 14

Round 13 rescheduled match

Round 15

Weekend of 19 February 2016

Round 16

Weekend of 27 February 2016

Round 17

Weekend of 5 March 2016

Round 18

Weekend of 11 March 2016

Round 19

Weekend of 26 March 2016

Round 20

Weekend of 02 April 2016

Round 21

Weekend of 16 April 2016

Round 22

Weekend of 30 April 2016

Round 23

Weekend of 7 May 2016

Round 24

Weekend of 21 May 2016

Round 25

Weekend of 28 May 2016

Round 26

Weekend of 4 June 2016

Playoffs

Quarter-finals

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Semi-finals

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Final

The final will take place on 24 June 2016 at the Camp Nou in Barcelona, Spain. The final was moved from its traditional site of the Stade de France in Saint-Denis because of a scheduling conflict with UEFA Euro 2016.^[1]

Leading scorers

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

Top points scorers Rank Player Club Points 1 Gaëtan Germain Brive 171 2 Burton Francis Agen 164 3 Zack Holmes La Rochelle 140 4 Jonathan Wisniewski Grenoble 138 5 Jules Plisson Stade Français 127 6 Camille Lopez Clermont 118 7 Maxime Machenaud Racing 110 8 Sébastien Bézy Toulouse 107 9 Nicky Robinson Oyonnax 98 10 Jonathan Pélissié Toulon 94

Top try scorers Rank Player Club Tries 1 Alex Tulou Castres 7 2 Marvin O'Connor Montpellier 6 Josua Tuisova Toulon 4 Steffon Armitage Toulon 5 Sébastien Bézy Toulouse Gaël Fickou Toulouse Timoci Nagusa Montpellier 8 12 players tied with 4

Notes

References

See also

• 2015–16 Rugby Pro D2 season

External links

• (French) Official website
• (French) Midi Olympique

Top 14 2015–16 Teams Agen Bordeaux Brive Castres Clermont Grenoble La Rochelle Montpellier Oyonnax Pau Racing Stade Français Toulon Toulouse The origins 1892 1892–93 1893–94 1894–95 1895–96 1896–97 1897–98 1898–99 1899–00 1900–01 1901–02 1902–03 1903–04 1904–05 1905–06 1906–07 1907–08 1908–09 1909–10 1910–11 1911–12 1912–13 1913–14 1914–15 1915–16 1916–17 1917–18 1918–19 Between the wars 1919–20 1920–21 1921–22 1922–23 1923–24 1924–25 1925–26 1926–27 1927–28 1928–29 1929–30 1930–31 1931–32 1932–33 1933–34 1934–35 1935–36 1936–37 1937–38 1938–39 During the second world war 1939–40 1940–41 1941–42 1942–43 1943–44 1944–45 After the second world war 1945–46 1946–47 1947–48 1948–49 1949–50 1950–51 1951–52 1952–53 1953–54 1954–55 1955–56 1956–57 1957–58 1958–59 1959–60 1960–80 1960–61 1961–62 1962–63 1963–64 1964–65 1965–66 1966–67 1967–68 1968–69 1969–70 1970–71 1971–72 1972–73 1973–74 1974–75 1975–76 1976–77 1977–78 1978–79 1979–80 1980–95 1980–81 1981–82 1982–83 1983–84 1984–85 1985–86 1986–87 1987–88 1988–89 1989–90 1990–91 1991–92 1992–93 1993–94 1994–95 Professional era and Top 16 1995–96 1996–97 1997–98 1998–99 1999–00 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 2004–05 Top 14 2005–06 2006–07 2007–08 2008–09 2009–10 2010–11 2011–12 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16 Trophy Bouclier de Brennus

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