2013–14 Top 14 season

2013–14 Top 14
Countries	France
Date	16 August 2013 – 31 May 2014
Champions	Toulon (4th title)
Runners-up	Castres
Relegated	Biarritz, Perpignan
Matches played	187
Attendance	2,678,932 (average 14,326 per match)
Highest attendance	80,174 (play-offs) Toulon v Castres 31 May 2014 63,075 (league stage) Stade Français v Toulouse 22 March 2014
Lowest attendance	6,109 Racing Métro v Grenoble 5 October 2013
Tries scored	607 (average 3.2 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

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

Bayonne

Biarritz

Bordeaux

Brive

Castres

Clermont

Grenoble

Montpellier

Oyonnax

Perpignan

Racing Métro

Stade Français

Toulon

Toulouse

Locations of the 2013–14 Top 14 teams

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

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 & Results

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]

Playoffs

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

Final

31 May 2014 21:00

Toulon	18 – 10	Castres Olympique
Pen: Wilkinson (4/4) 8', 23', 32', 54' D. Armitage (1/1) 74' Drop: Wilkinson (1/1) 36'	Stats[203]	Try: Evans 12' c Con: Kockott (1/1) Pen: Kockott (1/4) 29'

Stade de France, St-Denis Attendance: 80,174[204] Referee: Christophe Berdos

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 Rémy 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 Fa'asalele 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