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2009–10 Top 14 season

2009–10 Top 14 season
Countries  France
Champions Clermont
(1st title)
Runners-up Perpignan
Relegated Montauban
Albi
Matches played 187
Attendance 2,610,367
(average 13,959 per match)
Tries scored 597
(average 3.193 per match)
Top point scorer France Romain Teulet (263)
Top try scorer South Africa Sam Gerber (9)

The 2009–10 Top 14 competition was a French domestic rugby union club competition operated by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR). It began on August 14, 2009 with a match between Toulon and Stade Français at Stade Mayol in Toulon, and continued through to the final at the Stade de France on May 29, 2010.

This year's edition of the Top 14 welcomed Racing Métro, winners of the 2009 title in the second-level Pro D2, and Albi, victors in the 2009 promotion playoffs between the second- through fifth-placed teams in Pro D2, thus becoming the first team to achieve promotion to the Top 14 only one year after being relegated. They took the place of the two clubs from Landes, Dax and Mont-de-Marsan, relegated at the end of the 2008–09 Top 14. Mont-de-Marsan, which had been promoted to the Top 14 for 2008–09, finished bottom of the table and went down. The other newly promoted team in 2008–09, Toulon, finished ninth, sending Dax, who had already finished second-to-bottom the previous season before being allowed to stay in the Top 14 due to Albi's financial troubles, to Pro D2.

The two teams promoted for 2009–10 had very different results. Albi finished bottom of the table by a wide margin and went directly back to Pro D2. Racing Métro, on the other hand, finished sixth, giving them a berth in the newly expanded playoffs and a place in the 2010–11 Heineken Cup. Bayonne finished in the other relegation spot of 13th place, but were reprieved due to the financial problems of 12th-place Montauban.


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