2015–16 Top 14 season

2015–16 Top 14
Countries	France
Date	22 August 2015 – 24 June 2016
Champions	Racing 92 (6th title)
Runners-up	Toulon
Relegated	Oyonnax, Agen
Matches played	187
Attendance	2,678,562 (average 14,324 per match)
Highest attendance	99,124 (play-offs) Toulon v Racing 92 24 June 2016 57,886 (league stage) Toulon v Clermont 3 April 2016
Lowest attendance	5,983 Racing 92 v Grenoble 12 September 2015
Tries scored	840 (average 4.5 per match)
Top point scorer	Gaëtan Germain (Brive) 319 points
Top try scorer	Timoci Nagusa (Montpellier) 16 tries
Official website
www.lnr.fr
← 2014–15 2016–17 →

The 2015–16 Top 14 competition was a French domestic rugby union club competition operated by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR).^[1] 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 began on 22 August 2015 and ended on 23 May 2016. This was 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.^[2]

Having defeated Toulouse and table-topping Clermont en route to the final, Racing 92 won their sixth French championship title, and first since 1990, with a 29–21 win over Toulon,^[3] despite playing over three-quarters of the game with 14 men after scrum-half Maxime Machenaud was sent off for a dangerous tackle on Matt Giteau.^[4][5]

Club	City (department)	Stadium	Capacity
Agen	Agen (Lot-et-Garonne)	Stade Armandie	14,000
Bordeaux Bègles	Bordeaux (Gironde)	Stade Chaban-Delmas (Bordeaux) Matmut Atlantique	34,700 41,458
Brive	Brive-la-Gaillarde (Corrèze)	Stade Amédée-Domenech	16,000
Castres	Castres (Tarn)	Stade Pierre-Antoine	11,500
Clermont	Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme)	Stade Marcel-Michelin	19,022[a 1]
Grenoble	Grenoble (Isère)	Stade des Alpes[a 2]	20,068
La Rochelle	La Rochelle (Charente-Maritime)	Stade Marcel-Deflandre	15,000
Montpellier	Montpellier (Hérault)	Altrad Stadium	14,700[a 3]
Oyonnax	Oyonnax (Ain)	Stade Charles-Mathon	12,400[a 4]
Pau	Pau (Pyrénées-Atlantiques)	Stade du Hameau	13,800
Racing 92	Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine)	Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir[a 5]	14,000
Stade Français	Paris, 16th arrondissement	Stade Jean-Bouin[a 6]	20,000
Toulon	Toulon (Var)	Stade Mayol[a 7]	15,400
Toulouse	Toulouse (Haute-Garonne)	Stade Ernest-Wallon Stadium Municipal[a 8]	19,500 33,150

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, held this season at Camp Nou because the traditional site of Stade de France was not available in 2015–16 due to conflict with UEFA Euro 2016.

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

2015–16 Top 14 table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Clermont (SF)	26	18	1	7	735	431	+304	77	33	10	4	88	Semi-final play-off place Berth in the 2016–17 European Rugby Champions Cup
2	Toulon (RU)	26	16	0	10	764	446	+318	90	37	11	7	82
3	Montpellier (SF)	26	18	0	8	723	569	+154	77	50	7	2	81	Quarter-final play-off place Berths in the Champions Cup
4	Racing (CH)	26	18	1	7	614	522	+92	63	46	5	2	81
5	Toulouse (QF)	26	16	2	8	680	393	+287	80	35	7	4	79
6	Castres (QF)	26	15	0	11	650	496	+154	68	36	6	5	71
7	Bordeaux (CC)[a]	26	14	2	10	552	503	+49	44	44	3	4	67	Berth in the 2016–17 European Rugby Champions Cup
8	Brive	26	13	1	12	540	545	−5	43	51	4	4	62
9	La Rochelle	26	11	0	15	553	656	−103	51	65	4	6	54
10	Grenoble	26	10	0	16	605	779	−174	60	91	4	3	47
11	Pau	26	10	1	15	420	675	−255	30	75	2	2	46
12	Stade Français	26	9	0	17	543	631	−88	50	62	2	3	41
13	Agen (R)	26	5	0	21	531	846	−315	50	94	1	5	26	Relegated to Rugby Pro D2
14	Oyonnax (R)	26	5	0	21	429	847	−418	41	96	2	2	24

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.

The outline fixtures schedule was announced in May 2015.

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.^[33] 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.^[34]

	Quarterfinals					Semifinals					Final
						1	Clermont	33
	4	Racing	21			4	Racing	34
	5	Toulouse	16								4	Racing	29
											2	Toulon	21
						2	Toulon	27
	3	Montpellier	28			3	Montpellier	18
	6	Castres	9

---

---

The final took 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.^[2]

FB 15 Leigh Halfpenny  74' RW 14 Josua Tuisova  63' OC 13 Mathieu Bastareaud IC 12 Maxime Mermoz LW 11 Bryan Habana FH 10 Matt Giteau  63' SH 9 Jonathan Pélissié N8 8 Steffon Armitage  52'  52' OF 7 Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe BF 6 Mamuka Gorgodze  65' RL 5 Konstantin Mikautadze  57' LL 4 Samu Manoa TP 3 Levan Chilachava  63' HK 2 Guilhem Guirado (c)  57' LP 1 Xavier Chiocci 50' to 60'  74' Substitutions: HK 16 Jean-Charles Orioli  57' PR 17 Florian Fresia  52'  52'  74' LK 18 Romain Taofifénua  57' FL 19 Virgile Bruni  65' CE 20 Théo Belan  74' FB 21 Delon Armitage  63' FH 22 Frédéric Michalak  63' PR 23 Manasa Saulo  63' Coach: Bernard Laporte

FB 15 Brice Dulin RW 14 Joe Rokocoko OC 13 Johan Goosen IC 12 Henry Chavancy LW 11 Juan Imhoff FH 10 Dan Carter SH 9 Maxime Machenaud  19' N8 8 Chris Masoe  74' OF 7 Yannick Nyanga BF 6 Wenceslas Lauret RL 5 Manuel Carizza  69' LL 4 Bernard Le Roux TP 3 Ben Tameifuna  63'  75' HK 2 Dimitri Szarzewski (c)  63' LP 1 Eddy Ben Arous  71' Substitutions: HK 16 Camille Chat  63' PR 17 Khatchik Vartan  71'  75' LK 18 Juandré Kruger  69' N8 19 Antonie Claassen  74' SH 20 Xavier Chauveau WG 21 Marc Andreu CE 22 Albert Vulivuli PR 23 Luc Ducalcon  63' Coach: Laurent Travers Laurent Labit

• The attendance was a new record for any domestic club match in the sport.^[3]

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.

• Attendances do not include the semi-finals or final as these are at neutral venues.

Club	Home Games	Total	Average	Highest	Lowest	% Capacity
Agen	13	107,349	8,258	11,613	7,174	59%
Bordeaux Bègles	13	332,437	25,572	38,416	19,712	70%
Brive	13	145,272	11,175	13,543	9,586	70%
Castres	13	120,704	9,285	10,500	8,211	81%
Clermont	13	221,614	17,047	18,730	14,622	90%
Grenoble	13	176,500	13,577	18,000	10,000	68%
La Rochelle	13	194,173	14,936	15,000	14,537	100%
Montpellier[a 9]	14	159,840	11,417	15,000	8,000	78%
Oyonnax	13	126,500	9,731	14,000	7,000	77%
Pau	13	158,919	12,225	14,000	10,500	88%
Racing 92[a 10]	14	146,452	10,461	40,500	5,983	60%
Stade Francais	13	158,193	12,169	20,000	8,652	60%
Toulon	13	246,903	18,993	57,886	12,135	85%
Toulouse	13	226,632	17,433	32,479	10,503	76%

Home club	Away club	Stadium	Attendance
Toulon	Clermont	Stade Vélodrome de Marseille	57,886
Bordeaux	Toulon	Matmut Atlantique	38,416
Bordeaux	Racing	Matmut Atlantique	33,000
Bordeaux	Stade Français	Matmut Atlantique	25,000
Toulouse	Toulon	Stadium Municipal de Toulouse	32,479
Bordeaux	Toulouse	Stade Chaban-Delmas	31,189
Toulon	Stade Français	Allianz Riviera	29,414
Toulouse	Racing	Stadium Municipal de Toulouse	28,583
Bordeaux	Clermont	Stade Chaban-Delmas	28,332
Toulon	Toulouse	Allianz Riviera	27,549

• 2015–16 Rugby Pro D2 season

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