Urdapilleta, 40, and two points for history

Benjamin Urdapilleta delayed his retirement for this record. He broke it in his first game of the season.

Starting for the first time this season, in Créteil, the Perpignan fly-half drew level with and then passed Teulet with a first-half conversion. He added two penalties before the break, for eight points on the day, in a heavy 55-25 defeat to Racing 92.

The record covers the single-table championship played since 2001, the Top 16 and then the Top 14 from 2005. Teulet had set the mark of 2,612 points with Castres between 2001 and 2014.

Retirement delayed for two points

Urdapilleta was due to stop in June 2025. He injured his adductors the day before the promotion-relegation play-off against Provence Rugby, stuck on 2,611 points, one short of the record. Perpignan stayed up without him, and he agreed to extend for one more season under Laurent Labit. “The frustration over the record” had weighed in that decision, the Perpignan director of rugby confirmed.

“I’m only one point away from equalling the record and two from taking it outright. It would be huge, a kind of dream I never imagined,” he told L’Équipe in July.

Oyonnax, Castres, Clermont, Perpignan

He arrived in France in 2012 at Oyonnax, where he scored 550 points, according to L’Indépendant. He followed Christophe Urios to Castres, where he scored most of his total, 1,679 points between 2015 and 2023, and won the French title in 2018. Then came Clermont, where in May 2025 he became the all-time leading scorer of the Top 14 era, and finally Perpignan.

He has played more than 260 Top 14 matches, and his most prolific season remains 2020-21 with Castres, with more than 300 points.

Dourthe still ahead

Urdapilleta does not hold the absolute French championship record, though. According to research published by Canal+, Richard Dourthe scored 3,015 points in the top division between 1992 and 2008, part of them before the professional championship began in 1995 and the single table in 2001. The two rankings do not cover the same period.