It took until the last match for the opening round to deliver its tightest verdict.

Seven matches on Thursday night, one on Friday. Round 1 of the Pro D2 closed at Amédée-Domenech with the only close contest of the series.

All the results

Match Score
Dax – Narbonne 57-19
Grenoble – Aurillac 57-33
Provence Rugby – Agen 44-10
Soyaux-Angoulême – Colomiers 38-26
Biarritz – Nice 36-5
Béziers – Oyonnax 21-31
Nevers – Montauban 21-25
Brive – Valence-Romans 23-21

Four hundred and eighty-four points in total, or 60.5 per match. Five of the eight games ended in a home win.

Brive win, Valence-Romans take a point

In Brive, Grégory Patat’s first game in charge came down to two points. CAB led 17-6 at half-time and stretched it to 20-6, before the visitors from the Drôme came back to 20-16 and then to 21. Valence-Romans, hurt by their indiscipline in the first half, leave with a losing bonus point.

The fixture had a backstory: Fabien Fortassin, the architect of the Valence-Romans project in previous seasons, was on the Brive bench against his former club.

The promoted sides were nowhere

That was the big story of the round. Nice scored five points in Biarritz, Narbonne nineteen in Dax. The two clubs up from Nationale finished with 24 points scored between them and 93 conceded.

Montauban, the only club in the division relegated from the Top 14, did the opposite: they went to Nevers and won 25-21, despite conceding nineteen penalties, with three tries scored by three new signings.

Since 2012, the Round 1 record for newcomers now stands at six wins from 25 matches for promoted sides, against fourteen from 23 for clubs relegated from the Top 14. Both categories lived up to their numbers on the same night.

Dax top, Narbonne bottom

Team W L For Against Diff.
Dax 1 0 57 19 +38
Provence Rugby 1 0 44 10 +34
Biarritz 1 0 36 5 +31
Grenoble 1 0 57 33 +24
Soyaux-Angoulême 1 0 38 26 +12
Oyonnax 1 0 31 21 +10
Montauban 1 0 25 21 +4
Brive 1 0 23 21 +2
Valence-Romans 0 1 21 23 -2
Nevers 0 1 21 25 -4
Béziers 0 1 21 31 -10
Colomiers 0 1 26 38 -12
Aurillac 0 1 33 57 -24
Nice 0 1 5 36 -31
Agen 0 1 10 44 -34
Narbonne 0 1 19 57 -38

Dax go top on points difference, having led Narbonne 36-0 at half-time. Provence Rugby, picked as favourites by fourteen of the division’s sixteen head coaches, backed that up by thrashing Agen 44-10.

Two turnarounds

Two teams lost after leading at the break. Béziers led 21-10 at half-time before going down 31-21 to Oyonnax. Soyaux-Angoulême, on the other hand, trailed 20-16 before overturning Colomiers 38-26.

Round 2 is played next weekend.