The 2022–23 Top 14 competition is the 124th French domestic

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

club competition operated by the

Ligue Nationale de Rugby The French National Rugby League (french: Ligue Nationale de Rugby), known as the LNR, manages the professional rugby sector in France, by delegation of the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the French Rugby Federation. LNR * organises, manages and ...

(LNR).

Teams

Fourteen clubs will compete in the 2022-23 Top 14 season, 13 of them returning. Biarritz were relegated to

Pro D2 Rugby Pro D2, also known as Pro D2 is the second tier of rugby union club competition division in France. It is operated by Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR) which also runs the division directly above, the first division Top 14. Rugby Pro D2 was in ...

after finishing at the bottom of the table the previous season. Bayonne is the sole promoted club, finishing second in the Pro D2 the previous season and winning the Pro D2 playoffs. Perpignan, which finished 13th in the previous Top 14 season, defeated

Mont-de-Marsan Mont-de-Marsan (; Occitan: ''Lo Mont de Marçan'') is a commune and capital of the Landes department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. Population Military installations The French Air and Space Force operates the '' Constantin Roza ...

in the relegation playoffs to retain their place.

Number of teams by regions

Competition format

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 at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. 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, 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. France's bonus point system operates as follows: * 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.

Table

Relegation

From the 2017–18 season, only the 14th placed team is automatically relegated to the

. The 13th placed team play the runner-up of the

play-off, with the winner taking up the final place in the Top 14 for the following season.

Teams

Number of teams by regions

Competition format

Table

Relegation

Fixtures & results

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Round 10

Round 11

Round 12

Round 13

See also

Notes

References