Racing 92 have two games to stay out of the history books

Every team gets a bad start now and then. This one has no precedent in twenty-three seasons, and the next two Saturdays will decide whether it stays a bad start or becomes a bad season.

After two rounds: 112 points conceded

Racing 92 conceded 64 points at Bordeaux-Bègles, then 48 against Lyon, a total of 112 over their first two rounds. We calculated the same figure for every club in every season since the Top 14 was created in 2005, 306 season starts in all, and none comes close. The previous record belonged to La Rochelle, newly promoted in 2014-2015, with 97 points. Racing have beaten it by fifteen.

The attack makes up for none of it. With 36 points scored, the club has also posted its weakest attacking start of the last twelve seasons.

The worst starts in Top 14 history

The table holds a curiosity: Bayonne sit third, also from this season, after their 70-28 defeat at Pau. Two of the three worst starts in the championship’s history therefore come from the same campaign, the one that has just begun.

That leaves the question that always follows a record like this. Can a start like that be recovered? Here is where the seven clubs just behind Racing finished, plus the next two.

Seven of those eight clubs finished eleventh or lower, and two finished bottom: Vannes in 2024-2025 and Mont-de-Marsan in 2012-2013, the latter with two wins from twenty-six rounds. The only exception is La Rochelle, promoted that season, who ended up ninth. None of the eight reached the knockout stage.

After three rounds: what is at stake on Saturday

Racing travel to Marcel-Deflandre to face a Stade Rochelais side that has won its first two games. A defeat would put them in another statistic, less final than the first: thirty-five clubs have lost their first three Top 14 games since 2005, and four of them still made the knockout stage. The best finish in that group is fourth, and none ended in the top two, but two recent examples show nothing is settled yet. La Rochelle opened the 2021-2022 season with three defeats before finishing on 71 points, and Montpellier did the same in 2020-2021 before finishing on 54.

In other words, 0 from 3 cuts the chances of reaching the top 6 by a factor of three, without wiping them out. It is the last point at which the season can still be repaired.

The venue does not help. In their last eleven Top 14 trips to Deflandre, Racing have won only once, in February 2025, with one draw in December 2016 and nine defeats. Five times in those eleven visits they scored six points or fewer, including a 19-0 in March 2022 and a 33-6 last November, on their most recent trip.

After four rounds: the Bayonne fixture

The fixture list then puts Racing up against Bayonne, at home, on 26 September. Nineteen clubs have lost their first four games since 2005, and only two reached the knockout stage: Brive in 2008-2009 and Montpellier in 2011-2012. Eleven of the nineteen finished thirteenth or bottom.

This game has a particular edge, since it pits the two worst defensive starts of the season against each other. One of the two clubs will pick up its first win, and the other will drop into the category that almost nobody comes back from.

The record could have been worse

One caveat is worth adding, because it changes the scale of the figure. Racing were helped by the opposition goal-kickers: Union Bordeaux-Bègles missed three conversions from their ten tries, Lyon four from their eight, making seven missed attempts and fourteen points that never made the scoreboard.

Against opponents kicking at the championship’s usual success rate, the total would have climbed to 126 points and the points difference would have fallen to minus 90. La Rochelle’s record would then have been beaten by twenty-nine, not fifteen. Racing themselves missed nothing off the tee against Lyon, four conversions from four.

And no real home ground

The context makes things no easier. The Lyon game was played at the Stade Dominique-Duvauchelle in Créteil, with the usual ground unavailable, and the club will host Montpellier in Le Mans on 24 October. The return to Colombes is not expected before May.

Add the 71-17 semi-final defeat to Toulouse on 19 June, the ten tries conceded against UBB and the eight against Lyon, and Racing have leaked twenty-eight tries in three games. The season has barely started, but the run is already nine months old.