It’s like the Top 14 never went away as season kicks off
OLD FRIENDS: Ronan O'Gara greets Munster defence coach Denis Leamy. Pic: Nick Elliott, Inpho
It’s almost as if it never went away.
The new Top 14 season kicks off on Saturday evening, 71 days after Toulouse beat Montpellier to win the Bouclier de Brennus for a fourth time in a row.
Even the summer interseason has been noisy. Confusingly, headlines already focus on player moves at the end of June 2027 – Thomas Ramos and Francois Cros leaving Toulouse for Racing 92 and Lyon; Regis Montagne and Leon Darricarrere swapping Clermont for Toulon; Ben Obano signing for Pau from Prem side Bath; even Lucas Martins stepping up to join Castres from ProD2 side Agen.
Ronan O’Gara leaving La Rochelle for Leo Cullen’s job at Leinster. Or not.
After weeks of speculation, manager O’Gara, whose current deal ends in June 2027, distanced himself from those Leinster rumours – which had never gained much traction in France – in a recent Irish Examiner column.
“La Rochelle and the Bouclier remain an absolute obsession,” he wrote. “Greater … than any other coaching project I could … conceive of.”
If he agrees a new deal – one running to 2031 is on the table, reports in France say – it’s likely he’ll get his desired “decision-making authority over sporting matters, staff and players” following the summer departure of sporting director Robert Mohr.
Regional newspaper claims he’s already heavily involved in recruitment talks and planning for 2027/28 and beyond before any new deal is confirmed.
His staff are waiting for white smoke on that deal, with their contracts also up for renewal.
Tighthead Sione Ahio, Samoa captain Theo McFarland, ex-Munster fly-half Ben Healy, Bulls’ David Kriel, and veteran centre George Moala, as well as prospects Nathan Fraissenon, Sam Tuifua and Thomas Adelaide are among 10 new arrivals, the most the club has signed for a single campaign since eight new faces arrived in summer 2022, after O’Gara’s first season as overall manager.
A €2.725m fine for salary cap irregularities, which the club reportedly plans to appeal, and the departures of 30-somethings Ramos and Cros overshadowed a final-shortened preseason of La Rochelle’s opening weekend opponents, Toulouse, a side looking for a historic fifth Top 14 title in a row.
More pressingly, an injury crisis means the champions are likely to have a patched-up pack for their first outing of the new season.
But Ugo Mola could field the only new face on the squad, Italy’s Tommaso Menonchello, whose arrival enhances an already formidable roster of centres at the club.
An urgent bootroom reshuffle followed Castres’ limp to 10th last season. Defence coach Steven Setephano was replaced by former France under-20 coach Fabrice Estebanez, while ex-Georgia prop Davit Zirakashvili was hired to coach a penalty-riddled scrum.
Preseason started poorly.
Big signing Dalton Papali’i ruptured an Achilles on ‘bronco’ day, ruling him out for the first half of the season and prompting Castres to return to the market for backrow cover – where they grabbed veteran Hamish Watson from Leicester.
Two wins in their two preseason games, against relegated Montauban and an undercooked Montpellier suggest new systems may be working. But they won’t be tested until promoted Vannes head to Stade Pierre Fabre on Saturday.
The Breton side dominated the ProD2 last season, and have recruited heavily from a solid starting point to mount a serious survival challenge.
Prop Giorgi Beria wants to kickstart his international career after an injury-ruined season at Perpignan.
Clovis Le Bail has arrived on loan from Toulon, with Vannes waiting for Fiji scrum-half Simi Kuruvoli, due to arrive after the second half of the Nations Championship.
The seasons between their Brennus-winning 2022 campaign and Joan Caudullo's appointment as manager in July 2024 were miserable for last season’s Top 14 finalists Montpellier.
He gave them an identity and a direct, forward-heavy style – it’s rarely pretty but is brutally effective, as Ulster discovered in May’s Challenge Cup final.
It took them all the way to the Top 14 showpiece, too. He’s looking for more of the same this season, with a squad boosted by the likes of Adam Hastings, Reda Wardi, and Dimitri Delibes. But he’s rightly also wary of those earlier post-Brennus campaigns.
Perpignan and Bayonne – two sides coming off campaigns better cast into oblivion – have been active in the transfer market.
Sevu Reece, Luke McGrath, and Paolo Garbisi are the star signings for a Catalan side desperate to avoid the severe starting grid stall that saw them lose their first 11 games and leave them scrabbling for survival.
The latter have picked up several France-based players with points to prove, including scrum-half Leo Coly, winger Madosh Tambwe, and locks Brian Alainu’uese and Killian Geraci as they seek out the opposite of Perpignan: staying power.
The Basque side’s campaign fell apart spectacularly after Christmas in the fallout of an utterly predictable bootroom implosion that saw Gerard Fraser replace Gregory Patat as manager.
Winning back-to-back Champions Cup titles while in the throes of a backroom rift of their own – defence coach Christophe Lassucq left the club this summer with a year left on his contract – barely glossed over the disappointment at Bordeaux of missing out on the domestic play-offs for the first time in five years.
“It left a bitter taste,” manager Yannick Bru admitted. “[We have] a sense of responsibility that pushes us to approach the Top 14 with more consistency.”
Last season’s problem: an over-reliance on a small cohort of world-class players, who ran out of puff at the wrong end of the season.
The response: bolster eight stocks with Tom Willis, lock options with Alex Moon, and centre numbers with Dan Du Plessis. Tweak workload management to reduce injuries.
Former Lions scrum-half Sanele Nohamba was a late surprise recruit at perennial underperformers Lyon after two injury-ravaged seasons in Japan. Coach Karim Ghezal will hope Nohamba can rediscover his URC form as he urgently needs backup for Baptiste Couilloud.
AJ Lam, Darcy Swain and Etene Nanai-Seturo are the big summer arrivals at Clermont where manager Christophe Urios – deep in his own contract talks – needs to rebuild the Marcel Michelin fortress and rediscover paths to the knockout phase in two competitions.
Joachim Senga Kouo is a name only followers of French age-grade rugby may know – but the 19-year-old is one of Sebastien Piqueronies’ most important signings at upstart youth-heavy side Pau.
The ex-France under-20 coach is building something very special at Stade du Hameau, and he clearly wants more after their first run to the play-offs. Watch out for them.
Scrum-half Leo Carbonneau’s summer ACL injury, a heavier Champions Cup-led schedule, and a campaign without a home after La Defense Arena was sold to concert specialists Live Nation, all add up to a difficult campaign for Patrice Collazo’s Racing 92.
They have kept the recruitment levels low, bringing back Maxime Machenaud from Bayonne, Paul Costes from Toulouse, and Nicolas Martins from Colomiers. The veteran scrum-half’s workload increased dramatically following Carbonneau’s injury.
“I have one objective: to win a title,” Stade Francais’ manager Paul Gustard told recently, after guiding them to third last season. “If I don’t, I will consider it a failure.”
No room for interpretation, there. Nor is there much in his belief in his squad’s “balance between audacity and pragmatism”.
A careful recruitment campaign has landed Israel Leota, who seems destined to be a cult hero in Stade’s bid to continue their return to the upper echelons of French rugby.
Alex Codling’s arrival at Toulon as forwards coach – with a remit to rebuild their pack to the ferocious levels of old – is perhaps even more important than the return of Franck Azema to reform his popular coaching partnership with Pierre Mignoni, or the arrivals of international centres Huw Jones and Gael Fickou.
If he can do that, and Azema can get Jones and Fickou purring in midfield, serving some pacy outside backs, Toulon have every right to dream of a top six finish.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
