It wasn't pretty, but it was pretty satisfying as Vannes pick up a morale-boosting win at the home of local rivals Saint-Nazaire

Saint-Nazaire 16 Vannes 23: Les Vannetais chose the perfect time to pick up their first away win of the season as they came away from local rivals Saint-Nazaire with four points from a pragmatic if not spectacular performance.

They had to work hard for the win as their hosts pressed for the equalising score in the last 10 minutes, but a Vannes defence that has only leaked four tries in five matches held firm for a win that bodes well for the season after a so-so start.

Vannes outside-half Thomas Lebarillier and opposite number Yann Dorbeaux exchanged early penalties before 34-year-old Lebarillier restored the visitors' lead with an 11th minute penalty. The match became a battle of Nazairien attack and Vannetais defence before former Vannes flanker Alejandro Krancz broke through his ex-team-mates' defence and passed to full-back Kuruvoli who put winger Mathieu Bidau under the posts for the first try of the game. Dorbeaux converted for a 10-6 home lead but Lebarillier struck back twice before the interval to give the visitors an unlikely 12-10 half-time lead.

A fifth penalty three minutes into the second half extended that lead before Dorbeaux made it 15-13 just five minutes later. Vannes weathered the sin-binning of hooker Regis Loubery that had led to that penalty, but Saint-Nazaire couldn't say the same when it was their turn to play with a man down. No sooner had No.8 Anthony Le Luron - himself once a Vannes man - been white carded for a technical offence than his opposite number Jorge Gonzalez charged over to make it 20-15 to our Federale 1 favourites.

Again Dorbeaux reduced the deficit to a single score, but Lebarillier responded with a superb drop goal. Saint-Nazaire pressed for another score, spending the last 10 minutes in the Vannes 22, but after trying to spread the ball wide only for their talented three-quarters to hit a wall of blue, opted unsuccessfully to take their Breton rivals on at their own tight forward-dominated game and paid the price, picking up a sole bonus point.

A morale-boosting derby win for Vannes, but coach Esteban Devich refused to get carried away. "I am satisfied, but we need to keep our feet on the ground," he said. "We were not bad but we still have gaps. I'm not sure that the match would have been the same if [Saint-Nazaire lock Frederic] Fichot and [flanker Teddy] Veuillet had played against us. However, I appreciated the ability we had to defend our line, and the quality of our young scrum-half [Thomas] Diemunsch. It is only the first senior year and it was his second game after Colomiers. It's not easy. There's not much between qualification and relegation in this pool."

His colleague Jean-Noel Spitzer agreed. "It's true that if the win does not completely mask our shortcomings at the moment, but what's important is that it brings happiness to a squad looking for confidence. It's all down to the forwards who were able to deny Saint-Nazaire any ball, because behind, we were dominated by the brilliance of the back three."

Second string: Vannes B couldn't make it a double, losing 15-8 to Saint-Nazaire's seconds in the opener.

Also in Pool 3: Saint-Jean-de-Luz 12 Saint-Junien 6, Morlaas 10 Saint-Medard 6, Colomiers 33 Lavaur 18, Langon 33 Hagetmau 10

Next up: Vannes vs Saint-Jean-de-Luz Olympique, Saturday November 12, Stade Jo Courtel, Vannes.

Down the coast from Top 14 pair Biarritz and Bayonne live the next best Basque rugby team, St-Jean-de-Luz Olympique. Just 12 kilometres from the Spanish border, SJLO are Federale 1 fixtures, rarely troubling either promotion or relegation play-offs. Younger than their senior rivals having been founded in 1927, the club's glory days came in the 1970s when they reached the last 32 of the French championship three times and the last 16 once, losing to Brive at that stage in 1976. Their accession to the top flight came almost 40 years after it should have, the club winning promotion to the top division in 1939 only for the Second World War to intervene.

They were last seen in the top division for a single season in 1987/88, since when they've been comfortably occupying mid-tables all over France. They were technically relegated in 2010, but the subsequent demotion of our former Fed1 favourites Le Bugue saved them and they bounced back last season to finish sixth in their group of 13.

Five games into this season they sit second in Pool 3 with three wins and two narrow defeats to their credit. That two of their wins have come against bottom-feeders Saint-Junien and Hagetmau can be set against their impressive 26-3 win over Morlaas, and on their last visit to the north-west on the opening day they should have finished off the job against Saint-Nazaire, having led 16-0 at half time before Yann Dorbeaux completed the non-Bretons' comeback with an 80th minute penalty to win 17-16.

You've only got to look down the SJLO roster to know this is a Basque-dominated club, winger Jon Iturriria making the headlines with the boot rather than the ball this season, Anthony Etchegaray returning to the Basque lands from Bayonne via Mont-de-Marsan and Auch and a trio of Ibarburus - Bruno, Sebastien and the Uruguayan Gaston - and winger Xavier Indaburu being typical of this home-grown squad.

There are some foreign faces in the red, white and green, including Scot James Rennie, Spanish prop Jon Insausti and Polish international centre David Chartier, slotting in at full-back for the Basques on his one start to date.

Having only lost by a total of five points in their two reverses to date, SJLO will be hoping for a partial repeat of their trip to Saint-Nazaire on Sunday, but despite their impressive record, their problem has been crossing the try line, with only four tries recorded in five outings. Vannes are planning a paella fiesta to make them feel welcome after their 667km journey, but there'll be no Breton deuet mat when their two powerful packs go head-to-head at Stade Courtel.

The news Fed-lines: It's easiest to start in Pool 2, 'pool' being the operative word as matches from Nice to Nimes were called off due to the storms and floods which also put paid to Toulon's Top 14 meeting with Agen. The four cancellations allowed Montauban to move clear at the top of the table, the former top-flighters labouring to a 12-6 win at Toulouse-based Castanet.

Things were slghtly dryer in the northern Pool 1, where Lille fell to their first defeat on the season in the dying moments against Bobigny. Leading 27-19 going into the final quarter having trailed 12-0 during the first half, les Lillois, three tries to the good, could only watch as Alexandre Pichot kicked his fifth, sixth and seventh penalties - the last in the 82nd minute - to steal the points. Massy made it a Parisian double and leapfrogged Lille to the top of the pool with a tight win of their own at Orleans, coming away 17-13 victors having seen their hosts, in front of a record crowd, hit the posts with three penalty attempts. At the bottom the third Paris suburb, Boulogne-Billancourt, are yet to pick up a point after a 51-6 defeat at Macon.

In Pool 4 promotion prospects Tyrosse keep up the pressure on unbeaten top two Valence d'Agen and Lourdes with an 18-6 win over Blagnac. Full back Vincent Lesca scored two tries for last year's semi-finalists, who are just a point behind the top two. They both won, Lourdes picking up a superb 15-12 away win at Philippe Benetton's Limoges, where Mathieu Pouey's drop goal for the visitors proved decisive as his opposite number Jon Elrick missed a 45-metre penalty to tie the scores in second-half injury time. It was Limoges' first home defeat in 17 matches. Valence d'Agen recorded a more comfortable 22-11 win at lowly Riberac.

In Vannes' Pool 3, St-Jean-de-Luz moved up to second place with their 12-6 win over Saint-Junien, local boy Jon Iturriria kicking two of his four penalties in the last eight minutes to pinch a win in a tight affair in torrential rain. Georgia's World Cup fly-half Merab Kvirikashvili kicked Saint-Junien's points. Hundred-percenters Colomiers apart, this pool is the tightest of all, with only four points separating the Basques in second and Lavaur down in eighth. Home advantage should prove crucial - making Vannes' victory all the more significant - and Morlaas picked up four points on their own patch against high-flying Saint-Medard courtesy of a 100-metre dash from scrum-half Romain Chabat, who scored the game's only try after Morlaas had turned the ball over on their own line. Jean-Baptiste Dion missed three kickable penalties for the visitors, before Richard Dany sealed the 10-6 win with a penalty two minutes from time.

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Fédérale 1 Pool 3 table: