Le Notebook No.2: Toulouse Answer Back, Pau Take Flight and Racing Already Need Answers

Two rounds into the Top 14 season, it would be ridiculous to start drawing conclusions but it is impossible not to notice what is happening.

Le Notebook No.1 asked whether anybody could stop Stade Toulousain. A week later, perhaps we should modify the question.

How do you stop Toulouse when you make them angry?

The champions arrived at Ernest-Wallon on Sunday having lost 30-27 at La Rochelle. Their visitors, Union Bordeaux Bègles, had just dismantled Racing 92 64-5 and appeared ready to make an early statement of their own; instead, Toulouse produced one.

They led 36-0 at half-time and eventually won 48-12, collecting the attacking bonus. Kalvin Gourgues opened the scoring, Ange Capuozzo followed three minutes later and Julien Marchand, Santiago Chocobares and Teddy Thomas all crossed before the interval.

The official UBB account described Bordeaux as having been overwhelmed by Toulouse’s intensity and efficiency. It was quite a turnaround from the team that had scored 64 points seven days earlier.

Perhaps that’s our first lesson of this Top 14 season.

Form can travel remarkably badly in France.

But look who’s top

After two rounds, Section Paloise lead the Top 14 on nine points, ahead of Lyon on the same total and La Rochelle on eight. Toulouse are fourth with six; and Pau haven’t sneaked there.

They followed their impressive 27-19 opening victory away at last season’s finalists Montpellier by beating Bayonne 70-28 at the Stade du Hameau.

There is an important qualification. Bayonne were shown a red card after only four minutes but Pau still scored ten tries, all ten converted by former Exeter and England fly-half Joe Simmonds. Théo Attissogbé and Hugo Auradou both scored twice, with Émilien Gailleton, Rodrigo Marta, Jack Maddocks, Beka Gorgadze and captain Julian Montoya also crossing.

There were 14 tries in the match.

For anyone accustomed to arguments about whether professional rugby is becoming too structured, too tactical or too dependent upon kicking, the scoreline wasn’t a bad advertisement for a Saturday afternoon in Béarn.

More importantly for this Notebook, Pau are beginning to look like an excellent example of something French rugby is increasingly getting right.

They have resources, certainly; but they also have young French players - Attissogbé is 21. Gailleton is 23. Centre Fabien Brau-Boirie is just 20.

This isn’t simply a club buying its way towards the top of the table, there is a pathway underneath it.

Remember the name: Fabien Brau-Boirie

Every edition of Le Notebook is going to identify one young player worth remembering.

This time it is Fabien Brau-Boirie.

The Pau centre has progressed through the club’s academy, represented France U20 and already made his senior France debut, against Wales in Cardiff in February 2026.

And he’s still only 20 and in the game versus Bayonne he lined up alongside Gailleton in a Pau backline containing Attissogbé, Marta and Maddocks.

That collection of talent is one reason why Pau’s opening two victories deserve more attention than the league table alone provides.

English rugby spends considerable time discussing how young players bridge the gap between academy rugby and the professional game.

Pau may be worth watching.

La Rochelle quietly make the biggest statement

While Toulouse’s 48 points attracted the headlines and Pau’s 70 supplied the spectacular number, perhaps the most impressive opening fortnight belongs to Stade Rochelais.

First they beat Toulouse 30-27 at Marcel-Deflandre.

Then they travelled to Mayol and defeated Toulon 21-20.

Two games. Two victories. Toulouse and Toulon beaten and that is some start; bringing an Irishman neatly into our British and Irish watch; not quite sure how we missed him last week.

Ronan O’Gara has been in France long enough that we sometimes forget how extraordinary his coaching journey has been. Yet here he is again, overseeing a La Rochelle side which has opened its season by beating the defending champions and then winning at one of French rugby’s most intimidating venues.

La Rochelle are third on eight points and their next opponents?

Racing 92.

112 reasons for Racing to worry

Two games into a 26-match season is far too early to describe anything as a crisis.

But Racing 92 have already conceded 112 points.

UBB scored 64 against them in Round 1.

Lyon then arrived in Créteil and scored another 48, winning 48-31 and crossing for eight tries. Racing’s own match report acknowledges a second half in which Lyon pulled decisively away.

Racing are bottom of the Top 14 with no points.

Their reward is a trip to La Rochelle on Saturday. Racing remain one of the recognisable names of modern French club rugby, but reputations don’t defend.

If La Rochelle expose them again, then by le Notebook No.3 we may no longer be talking about a poor start, we may be discussing a structural problem.

And Vannes are learning quickly

The other club without a point is promoted RC Vannes.

We highlighted them in Notebook No.1 because their recruitment and increased resources made them one of the most interesting promoted teams in recent seasons.

Top 14 has immediately demonstrated the size of the step.

Vannes lost 29-20 at Castres and then returned to La Rabine, where they had been unbeaten throughout their previous league campaign, only for Montpellier to win 26-12.

No points from two matches when on Saturday night they welcome Toulouse.

Except they won’t actually be at La Rabine; the match is being staged at Roazhon Park in Rennes, a fascinating example of the commercial opportunity created by Vannes’ return to the Top 14.

A promoted Breton club against the giants of Toulouse in a football stadium feels like precisely the sort of story this series should follow.

The result matters.

But so does everything happening around it.

The British and Irish watch

The opening weekend gave us the perfect English story when Tom Willis scored twice in Bordeaux’s 64-5 demolition of Racing.

Round Two was rather less comfortable.

Willis started at No.8 at Ernest-Wallon as UBB encountered a completely different level of resistance.

That contrast itself is interesting.

His brother Jack has demonstrated at Toulouse that English players can thrive in the Top 14 environment. Tom’s second spell in France now gives us another player through whom to examine the differences between Premiership and French rugby during the season.

There is another English name worth noticing at Pau.

Joe Simmonds converted all ten tries against Bayonne; 20 points from the kicking tee in one afternoon.

One of the pleasures of following Top 14 from a TRU perspective is that the British and Irish connection is no longer confined to ageing internationals heading to France for a final contract; it is players and coaches who are becoming embedded in these clubs.

That is a different phenomenon.

The number: 97

Pau have scored 97 points in two matches.

Lyon have scored 88.

UBB, despite scoring only 12 at Toulouse, still have 76 because of that extraordinary opening weekend.

The other end of the spectrum is equally striking.

Racing have conceded 112.

Statistics after two matches should always come with a warning label.

Three things to watch next

The first is obvious.

Lyon v Pau.

First against second. Both have nine points. Pau have scored 97; Lyon have scored 88. Something has to give at Matmut Stadium on Saturday.

Then comes La Rochelle v Racing 92.

One club has beaten Toulouse and Toulon.

The other has conceded 112 points.

Racing desperately need a response.

And finally, Vannes v Toulouse at Roazhon Park.

The champions have just reminded Bordeaux who they are. Vannes are still searching for their first Top 14 point.

On paper it looks straightforward.

The view from TRU

Two weeks doesn’t make a season, but it can give us clues.

Toulouse remain Toulouse. Sunday night demonstrated that emphatically.

Yet perhaps the most interesting development isn’t happening in Toulouse at all.

Pau are producing young French talent and scoring tries. Lyon have started with consecutive wins. La Rochelle have beaten two European heavyweights. Vannes are discovering the extraordinary demands of promotion. Racing are discovering how quickly a bad week can become a bad fortnight.

And all of it is taking place inside a competition that last season averaged a record 16,256 spectators per match, with Sunday-night television audiences averaging 683,000.

That’s why Le Notebook isn’t going to become a list of results.

The results are merely the evidence.

What we’re really trying to understand is why French club rugby currently feels so competitive, so commercially confident and so capable of producing stories throughout its league table.

Two rounds in, we’ve already got rather a lot to talk about.