Top 14: O'Gara rings La Rochelle changes, Lancaster’s Racing 92 future looks secure
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Jonathan Danty will captain La Rochelle in the Top 14 for a second time as Ronan O’Gara rang the seasonal changes for their last match of 2024, at Perpignan on Sunday.
The manager made nine changes to the starting line-up for the trip to Stade Aime Giral – leaving regulars Will Skelton, Uini Atonio, Grégory Alldritt, Ulupano Seuteni, Dillyn Leyds and Ihaia West at home, as he kept one eye on next weekend’s game against Toulouse at Stade Marcel Deflandre.
Danty forms a midfield partnership with Simeli Daunivucu, making just his second start since joining the Top 14 side in the summer. Australian international Suliasi Vunivalu will want to make up for a mixed debut against Vannes in November as he makes his second start after joining the Top 14 side as a medical joker.
West, meanwhile, is rested after a trio of impressive outings at fly-half throughout the opening two Champions Cup weekends and in last week’s Top 14 win over Clermont. Antoine Hastoy, on the bench last week, makes his first start since November.
Reda Wardi and Hugo Reus are the most notable names on a 5-3 bench, as loosehead and fly-half return to match action after injury.
Georgian tighthead Aleksandre Kuntelia is also back after serving a suspension for a red card against Castres, while 21-year-old hooker Nikolozi Sutidze features on a matchsheet for the first time since October.
La Rochelle’s trip to Perpignan is the second of three matches on the final Sunday of 2024, which opens with Racing 92 v Lyon at La Defense Arena, and rounds off the year – and the first half of the season – with Toulouse v Stade Francais at Stadium Toulouse.
Unlike O’Gara, Toulouse boss Ugo Mola – who rested a number of players last weekend – has selected his strongest available squad for the visit of the Parisians, for whom last season’s record-breaking ProD2 try-scorer Raffaele Costa Storti makes just his second start since returning from a loan spell at Beziers in the summer. Louis Foursans-Bourdette, meanwhile, starts a professional match at scrum-half for the first time opposite a certain Antoine Dupont.
Stuart Lancaster’s future at Racing 92 appears secure, following a statement about the impending departure of club chairman Laurent Travers, set to become director of rugby at Bayonne at the end of the season.
Confirming long-standing speculation about Travers, club owner Jacky Lorenzetti “reiterate[d] his full confidence in Stuart Lancaster and his team to win titles in 2025 and beyond”, in a statement.
On Saturday, Bayonne scored twice in the closing seven minutes as they condemned Jeremy Davidson’s apparently still Christmas-recovering Castres to a third Top 14 loss in a row. The league’s leading try-scorer Sireli Maqala broke clear to score with the clock in the red to add a bonus-point gloss to a 33-12 win.
Pau, too, picked up a very useful try-scoring bonus as they ran in six of the nine tries in their 48-24 win over bottom-of-the-table Vannes at Stade du Hameau. Jack Maddocks celebrated his contract extension with a brace, while Olympic gold-medalist Aaron Grandidier opened his Top 14 try account for the home side.
Acting fly-half Stuart Hogg guided Montpellier to an 18-22 win on the road at Clermont, the hosts’ first home defeat this season, with five penalties and a conversion.
Matthieu Jalibert’s injury – he won’t be back until mid-January – has allowed Joey Carbery something of a run in the 10 shirt for Bordeaux. He started his third match in a row as they beat a Toulon side featuring Antoine Frisch 21-17 in a physical encounter under the hazy shade of floodlit winter fog at Stade Chaban Delmas.