Stade Montois were back in action on Friday night. Two and a half months after the game that sent them down, they did not flinch.
Stade Montois were back in action on Friday night, against Vienne. Two and a half months after the game that sent them down, they did not flinch: 47-0, seven tries, an attacking bonus point and not a single point conceded.
An emphatic opening
The first try came after forty seconds, through Leraitre. Robic followed in the 7th minute, Even in the 10th, Barreau in the 29th: 26-0 at the break. Usarraga straight after the restart, then Walisoliso in the 59th and Dachary in the 72nd completed the scoring. Barreau kicked four conversions, Du Plessis the last two. One yellow card each side: Van Jaarsveld in the 20th minute, Robin in the 69th.
The promoted Isère side, runners-up behind Orléans in Pool 1 of Nationale 2 in the spring, never got going.
Eleven wins and a lost play-off
The 2025-2026 record left little margin. Eleven wins, one draw and eighteen defeats across thirty rounds of Pro D2, with 701 points scored and 950 conceded. Then came the relegation play-off, played on 31 May in Nice and lost 31-26. Nice went up, Mont-de-Marsan went down.
It is a first for the club at this level. Since 2000, Stade Montois had moved between Pro D2, where our records credit them with twenty-two seasons over the period, and the Top 14. They had never played in Nationale.
Eleven seasons, 192 games
The armband goes to Nicolas Garrault. The 35-year-old lock and back-row forward is starting his eleventh season at Mont-de-Marsan, having arrived in 2016 after a spell at Stade français and a season at Tarbes. His tally before last night’s game speaks for itself.
| Nicolas Garrault at Stade Montois, before Round 1 of 2026-2027 | |
|---|---|
| Seasons | 10 (2016-2017 to 2025-2026) |
| Games played | 192 |
| of which starts | 169 |
| Minutes | 12,882 |
| Tries | 10 |
Almost nine starts in every ten games: over ten seasons he has rarely been missing from the team sheet, and he passed 1,900 minutes three times, in 2015-2016 with Tarbes, then in 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 in the Landes.
Hence the contrast with last season. A serious knee injury picked up in pre-season limited him to four appearances and 275 minutes, his lowest total since he arrived. He was not on the pitch in Nice.
“When the squad was asked about the captaincy, my name came up,” he told Sud Ouest before the season. “Maybe it’s because I’ve been here longest, I’m the one who knows the team best.” He says it took “ten, twelve days” to find out whether he was being kept on for this season, before the call from Romain Mareuil.
The other Round 1 results
Three other games were played at the same time on Friday night. Carcassonne, the other side relegated from Pro D2, beat Albi 32-14 with a bonus point. Orléans won their Nationale debut 27-6 against US Bressane. Suresnes beat Rouen 23-13. Périgueux – Massy, Rennes – Chambéry and Bourgoin – Marcq-en-Barœul complete the round on Saturday.
One quirk of this season: there is no relegation, as the FFR (French Rugby Federation) prepares to expand Nationale to sixteen clubs. So there is nothing to lose at the bottom, and a single promotion place to chase at the top. Next up for Mont-de-Marsan: a trip to Albi next Friday.
Comments