France - Top 14 table

It is getting to the end of the Top 14 series and the Log is interesting:-
1  La Rochelle        -    712  Clermont           -    633  Montpellier        -    554  Pau                   -    525  Toulon               -    53 *6  Castres              -    517  Bordeaux           -    458  Racing Metro      -    459  Brive                 -    4410 Toulouse           -    4311 Lyon                 -    4112 Stade Francais   -   4013 Grenoble           -   2914 Bayonne           -   26
Stade Francais and racing Metro did not play their 21st matches this weekend because of the merging announcement so those two teams and Toulouse and Lyon only played 20 matches.   All other teams played 21 matches.
What is interesting is that La Rochelle has a balanced team and two of their players are from SA - namely Ricky January and Paul Jordaan.   It is clear the latter was a great loss to the Sharks.   La Rochelle has a winning record of 14 out of 21 matches played
Then we have the rest.   Clermont and Montpellier has won 12 of the 21 matches they played - ie a winning percentage of 57,14%.   Mozart will obviously find a reason for that - but fact is the game plan of white is not really a winning plan for teams. 
There are five more matches to be played for the teams who have already played 21 games and 6  for the four teams mentioned.   I think La Rochelle with a points difference of 193 is way clear of the rest.   For example the point difference of Montpellier is a lowly 61 points, 
The number of points scored by Montpellier 492 place it on position 6 of teams and it only scored 3 points more than Bordeaux.   That illustrate that Jake-ball does not really represent point-scoring.
Another issue of interest is that Montpellier has a vey high percentage of SA, Aussie and other foreign players - many with international experience - yet they are not really shown that they are top competitors.               

 

I am not at all interested in playing ping pong over the French rugby again, so this is my take on it. If you don't like, then so be it.
Like many other competitions, you have this scenario where the "normal" top teams are going through a patch and then you have one or two of the "normal" bottom teams making a breakthrough into the top order. The exact same thing happened in the English Premier league last season. All of the top clubs had a sudden dip. Chelsea had their issues with Jose Mourinho. Man City had just signed Pep Guardiola. ManU had their manager issues since Alex Ferguson's departure, etc, etc, and suddenly Leicester could not put a foot wrong and Claudio Ranieri was the new Messiah. This year Leicester is back to their old selves and back in the bottom half of the log and the new Messiah, Ranieri, has already been fired long ago. I think Jamie Vardy is crapping himself for sticking with The Foxes.
The same thing is happening in the Top14 at the moment. Toulouse haven't been themselves for a few seasons running. Clermont is not running smoothly at the moment either. Stade Francais, out of the blue, won the Top14 two seasons ago and immediately slumped back and even further down the log than they used to be. Racing Metro splashed a moer of lot of cash and won the bloody thing and are also down in their usual spot this year. Toulon have lost  a lot of top players and some of their key players are "getting on" and they are in a phase of rebuilding. La Rochelle has always been out of the top eight for years and being at the top is unfamiliar territory for them. Pau has only recently been promoted into the Top14 and who knows, maybe they could emulate Toulon who also promoted into the Top14 and won it after a few seasons. Or.... they could also be back to the bottom part next season.
Be that as it may, you never know with the Top 14 because anything can happen and in the end it is the teams with the best BMT that is going to make it into the play-offs. At this stage, due to the competition structure, any of the top 6 are still in with a shout.

 Granted - but the problem is that only La Rochelle has a winning record of 66,7% - while the rest of the te ams are below the 60% mark. 
A major part of the season is gone and to be going through a rough patch has taken a new meaning with so many teams losing so many matches.   Most of the teams seems to be going through a rough patch.
Stade Francais is not used to be so low on the log and there is something seriously wrong in that club.   Racing Metro is also down in ratings.   During commentary on the match yesterday the commentator mentioned that Stade Francais has financial problems - hence the merger decision.
The merger is off - but is it really so?   The player strike could have ended the present merger proposal - but will it be effective in June when another announcement could be forthcoming.      

"Granted - but the problem is that only La Rochelle has a winning record of 66,7% - while the rest of the teams are below the 60% mark." 
That is exactly why I like the Top14. You never know what is going to happen when. How many other leagues are there where the the log leaders have lost so many games and are still at the top? There are no real "milk cows" like we have in Super Rugby. Which other league is there where you never know for sure that the log leaders will definitely beat the team at the bottom or at the lower end of the table? You need to look now further than La Rochelle loosing to eight placed Bordeaux. What is more, Bordeaux beat them by a healthy 26-0. In addition, they also lost to Stade Francais by 31-26.
I would agree that Stade Francais is not used to being this low but they are also not known to be regulars in the top 6 by the end of the season either. The same could be said for Racing Metro. The top four teams have, for a long time, been Clermont, Toulouse, Toulon and Grenoble, who is also (uncharacteristically) in the relegation zone at the moment. Stade and Racing were, for a long time regulars at 5 and 6 on the log at the end of the season. IIRC, Stade kind of sneaked in in the year that they won it recently. I'm not 100% sure and haven't checked but I seem to recall that they just made it into the top 6 to go into the play-offs. From there they pulled themselves together to make it into the semis and the final where they beat Toulon. If I wanted to spoil your day, I could elaborate on how they got to the play-offs and won the final in the end.