Three defeats, 183 points conceded, Racing finally win

Three defeats, 183 points conceded, and the worst start in Top 14 history behind them. Racing have won at a ground where they had stopped scoring ten years ago.

Twenty second-half points, none conceded

Racing spent forty minutes producing nothing, and the next forty turning everything around. Trailing 10-0 at the break, after a penalty and a converted try from Nolann Le Garrec, they scored every one of their points after half-time without conceding any, something that had not happened to them all season.

Max Spring’s try on 53 minutes, converted by Geronimo Prisciantelli, started the comeback, and the Argentinian fly-half then added two penalties, on 61 and 74 minutes, to bring his side within a point. Romain Taofifenua finished it off on 79 minutes, conversion included, and the final score sums up the match fairly well: 20-10, each team scoring ten points in its own half of the game, except that Racing added ten more.

The contrast with what came before is stark. Racing had not won since 13 June at Pau, and the three matches that followed all ended in defeat: the 71-17 semi-final loss to Stade Toulousain on 19 June, then 64-5 at Bordeaux-Bègles and 31-48 against Lyon. Three defeats, 183 points conceded. Over the two league rounds alone, the 112 points shipped are the heaviest total in Top 14 history. This time they conceded ten.

It was about time we got back to being ourselves a bit

Patrice Collazo | L'Équipe

Three of La Rochelle’s lowest home totals came against them

The result is not entirely a fluke, and that is the most interesting part of the evening. Since 2019, La Rochelle have scored fewer than thirteen points at Marcel-Deflandre in the Top 14 only five times, and three of those five matches were against Racing 92: nine points in November 2020, twelve in October 2019, ten this Saturday.

What Racing never managed there was not defending, it was scoring. In their eleven previous visits, they had won only once, in February 2025, and had scored six points or fewer five times, including a 19-0 defeat in March 2022. Their twenty points on Saturday are their best total at Deflandre since May 2016, when they won there 30-14.

Zero from three avoided, and what that is worth

A defeat would have put them in a group that rarely recovers. Thirty-five clubs have lost their first three Top 14 matches since 2005, and only four went on to reach the knockout stage, the best of them finishing fourth. None finished in the top two.

Two records need separating, though, because Racing hold only one of them. The 112 points conceded over the first two rounds remain the heaviest total in the competition’s history, and that figure will not change. Their losing run, on the other hand, stopped at two rounds, which is nothing on that scale: Perpignan lost their first fifteen matches in 2018-2019, eleven more last season, and Mont-de-Marsan ten in 2012-2013. Racing set a record for points conceded, not for defeats.

That does not settle the season. Racing remain twelfth on four points, and their points difference of minus 66 is still the worst in the league, well behind Vannes, bottom on zero points but only minus 23. One win does not make up for 112 points conceded, it stops the bleeding.

Even when we win, I am worried

Patrice Collazo | RMC Sport

Bayonne then Perpignan, two home games to build on

The fixture list is kind, remarkably kind in fact. Racing host Bayonne on 26 September, which pits the third-worst start in league history against the worst, since Aviron also feature in that ranking with 96 points conceded in their first two rounds. Except that Bayonne have won both their matches since, including a 46-24 win over Clermont this Saturday, and will arrive in Paris fourth in the table.

Perpignan follow the week after, also at home. Two home games in a row, then, to turn a one-off win into a run, in a stadium that is still not their own: the club hosted Lyon at Créteil, will host Montpellier at Le Mans on 24 October, and do not expect to return to Colombes before May.