The Top 14 season that began on 7 September 2024, ended last night close to midnight after nine months and twenty-eight weekends it finally decided to call it a day.

The Top 14 Final is a rugby and cultural event like no other. It is Mardi Gras and Oktoberfest all rolled into one.

From early morning the TGVs roll into Gare de Lyon and Gare Montparnasse with their colourful human cargo disembarking and immediately heading for a station buffet espresso with the speed and footwork of Louis Bielle-Biarrey.

The day of the final is an extremely long one with kick off post 9 p.m. Wherever you go in the French capital on the day of the final there are lines of families in team shirts sitting out in geometric lines of cafe tables as far as the eye can see soaking up the sun’s rays amid the wafting aroma of steak frites.

The glass carafes of red, white and rosé glisten in the sun. This is as much a part of final day as the match itself, and just as grueling, with cheese and coffee and maybe even a brandy to get through before setting off for Stade de France with a heavy heart an even heavier stomach and a much lighter wallet.

If you have never been to Paris for a Top 14 final, I would recommend you add it to your bucket list.

Paris on a June summer’s night the temperature a simmering thirty degrees at 9pm and an intoxicating rugby occasion at Stade de France is truly one of life’s pleasures.

This Top 14 Final between Bordeaux and Toulouse two teams who are no strangers to matches of this magnitude will be remembered for a very long time.

As colourful sporting occasions go this was blindingly vivid, a feast for the senses in colour and sound enhanced by the speed of Penaud, the elegance of Ntamack and the raw and brutal collisions where Big Ben and Massive Meafou instead of swapping jersey’s exchanged rib cages.

A penalty from Bordeaux scrum half Maxime Lucu in the 80th minute brought the scores level at 33-33 and forced the contest to go to extra-time

In those red hot nerve jangling added twenty minutes the ice cool Thomas Ramos landed two penalties to give Toulouse victory (39-33) and their third consecutive Top 14 title.

The 78,534 present witnessed a pulsating contest as the lead changed hands on six occasions. When Toulouse established a ten point lead (33-23) with fourteen minutes remaining it looked game over but Bordeaux had other ideas and a 69th minute try from Petti Pagadizabal converted by the immaculate Lucu brought the defect back to three points.

Saturday night reached over to Sunday morning as the midnight hour passed whilst Julian Marchand lifted the Bouclier de Brennis a trophy the size and shape of a wardrobe door.

For Toulouse a dark season that has been touched by tragedy and blighted by injuries had finally seen some sunshine and there were many tears shed by players and staff alike.

So the Top 14 and the season that never ends finally ended but we do it all again in the blink of an eye when the teams start their pre season training next month. Oo La La !