Top 14: Ronan O'Gara preparing La Rochelle for crunch Toulouse clash

Stuart Lancaster’s Racing 92 got back to winning ways on Saturday, meanwhile.

Stade Rochelais' Head Coach Ronan O'Gara. Pic: INPHO/Billy Stickland

Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle face a late season-defining match on Sunday night as they look to round off the penultimate round of Top 14 season by inflicting a first home defeat on newly crowned Champions Cup winners Toulouse.

O’Gara has selected his strongest available squad for the match – relocated to the 33,000-capacity Stadium Toulouse, with tighthead Uini Atonio set to play his 300th match for the club, in his 13th season at Marcel Deflandre, and fellow France international Reda Wardi back in the starting line-up on the other side of the front row.

Brice Dulin will wear 15, while – with Ultan Dillane injured – usual backrow Judicael Cancoriet lines up alongside Will Skelton in the second row. Gregory Alldritt captains from his usual eight, while Thomas Berjon and Antoine Hastoy team up at the hinge.

Defeat on Sunday won’t kill La Rochelle’s chances, but it will make for a nervy run-in to their final match, at home against Racing 92, with Perpignan and Castres hovering just outside the play-off places.

Toulouse have a pass to the post-season semi-finals in Bordeaux in the bag, allowing coach Ugo Mola to rotate his squad in the aftermath of last week’s extra-time win over Leinster, with Francois Cros set to be the only member of last Saturday’s starting side to run out for kick-off on Sunday.

But his options were limited by the fact that several of his preferred academy players have been retained by the age-grade side for the semi-finals of the Espoirs Championship this week. The bench on Sunday, therefore, has a certain star quality – it features Peato Mauvaka, Cyril Baille, Dorian Aldegheri, Alexandre Roumat and Jack Willis, while prop Joel Merkler will deputise in the second row.

On Saturday, Stuart Lancaster’s Racing 92 ended a three-match losing streak with a 24-15 win over Pau at their end-of-season temporary Auxerre home to consolidate their place in the top six, and remain on the road to maintain a proud record of reaching the play-offs in every season since their return to the top flight in the 2009/10 season.

Stade Francais, meanwhile, will be watching the early Sunday evening match between Toulon and Clermont closely after missing out on claiming the second automatic semi-final place outright with a 27-18 defeat at Jeremy Davidson’s Castres. Anything less than victory for Toulon at Stade Mayol will gift the Parisians a bye to Bordeaux.

Jan Serfontein scored a hat-trick as Montpellier – in the midst of a player revolt and another management shake-up, and already resigned to a survival play-off against the loser of the ProD2 final between Grenoble and Vannes – picked up a morale-boosting 41-26 win over Lyon at the GGL Stadium.

Relegated Oyonnax signed off their season at home with a 27-20 win over Bayonne, Enzo Reybier scoring the decisive try – his second of the match – in the 79th minute. A second win in 2024 was never going to be enough to save Joe El-Abd’s side, but it gave their fans something to cheer, ahead of their return to the ProD2.

And revelation of the season Perpignan raced into a 31-16 first-half lead over Bordeaux, before surviving a second-half fightback to win 37-30 to sit in seventh place, just two points outside the play-off spots.