24 October 2009: Champions Perpignan celebrate another win at Stade de France, Clermont blow a chance to unseat Castres at the top and six-try Toulon turn on the style against Bourgoin

Stade Francais 14 Perpignan 20; Montpellier 16 Clermont 9; Toulouse 23 Biarritz 3; Brive 10 Racing-Metro 18; Toulon 46 Bourgoin 28; Montauban 20 Albi 6 - Latest league table

Perpignan must be starting to feel at home at Stade de France. Five months after winning the Top 14 title at the Paris venue, they beat Stade Francais 20-14 to move up to second in the table.

Stade Francais, on the other hand, must be sick of the place. Having gone unbeaten for four years at their chosen big-match venue, the Parisians have now lost four and drawn one of their last five shindigs at the arena.

The Catalan visitors wasted no time getting off the mark, and after setting out an early stall in the Paris half, Jerome Porical kicked the first points with a fifth minute penalty.

It was the Parisians who scored the first try. A minute after Lionel Beauxis had failed with a drop goal attempt, quick ball off a lineout on the halfway line moved quickly across the field. Mathieu Bastareaud's decoy run broke up the USAP defence,  Mirco Bergamasco went through the gap and Hugo Southwell came up on the outside to score the try.

Perpignan regained the lead five minutes before half time. Kicking to clear his try line, Beauxis failed to find touch and instead Julien Candelon caught the ball 40 metres out. Candelon stepped inside to hand off Bergamasco and outrun Beauxis's despairing tackle before slipping an inside pass to centre Maxime Mermoz, who had little more than five metres to run to touch down. Porical converted for a 10-5 half-time lead.

Julien Dupuy closed the gap to 10-8 with a penalty two minutes into the second half, and gave Paris the lead 10 minutes later with a second penalty for 11-10. But it wasn't to last more than a few minutes, Porical kicking a 50-metre penalty to regain the lead before scoring a try of his own just before the hour.

Perpignan scrum-half Florian Cazenave ran from inside his own half as far as the Paris 22-metre line, but despite being tackled, managed to sling a huge pass back to Porical, who head diagonally for the corner, outrunning the Stade Francais defence to score a superb try.

An equally impressive conversion from the touchline made it 20-11 to the visitors, but the game swung back Paris's way when USAP flanker Henry Tuilagi was yellow carded for a dangerous tackle on Beauxis. Dupuy converted the penalty, and Paris went all-out for the winning try.

Right at the death, Bastareaud charged to within two metres of the Perpignan line, only to lose the ball in the tackle, and then Paris lock Pascal Papé broke through the previously solid Catalan defence only for Porical to save the game with a last-ditch tackle.

Clermont could have overtaken Castres at the top of the table, but fell victim to an 'up' week for the Top 14's resident manic-depressives, Montpellier. Grant Rees scored the only try of the game after nine minutes, Vassili Bost taking quick ball at the line out, Julien Tomas nipping through the Clermont defence and slipping a pass to the South African centre who ran all of five metres to score.

Three quickfire penalties from Brock James gave Clermont the lead after half an hour, but Federico Todeschini kicked two late penalties, the second on the hooter, to give the 'Pellier a 13-9 half-time lead.

Clermont tired to run the ball wide after the break but Montpellier's rush defence forced them into making basic errors, Seremaia Bai holding on when tackled to present Todeschini with his third penalty on 57 minutes.

The visitors went looking for a converted try late on, but Montpellier's resolute defending held out, and they got back to winning ways at their Stade Yves-du-Manoir after recent defeats to both Toulouse and - brace yourselves - Connacht.

Toulouse had been forced to move their clash with Biarritz back from the larger Stadium Toulouse to Stade Ernest-Wallon because of concerns over the Stadium pitch, but despite the smaller crowd, the atmosphere wasn't any the less for it.

Biarritz had won their last seven matches and started the strongest, but it was 28 minutes before Freddie Michalak opened the scoring with a penalty, Dimitri Yachvili cancelling out Toulouse's lead just four minutes later.

Just before the break, a frankly awful up-and-under from Michalak bounced away from the Biarritz defence, and new French captain Thierry Dusatoir deftly gathered the bouncing ball and flipped a pass to Louis Picamoles. Two steps later, Vincent Clerc took the pass and skipped over for a 10-3 lead.

Michalak added a drop goal on 63 minutes and a penalty eight minutes from time, but a powerful charged from Harinordoquy aside, Biarritz had little to show for the afternoon's efforts.

Yann David put the finishing touches to Toulouse's victory in the dying seconds, Byron Kelleher making a blindside run to wthin two metres of the line and the ball being spun wide until centre David found a gap in the Basque defence and crossed for a slightly flattering 23-3 win.

Brive's troubles deepen, with the forced resignation of honorary president Patrick Sebastien being followed by a home defeat by promoted Racing-Metro, who finally seem to be finding their feet in the Top 14 after a shaky start.

There was no shaky start for Brive on Saturday, as Fabrice Estebanez's second-minute penalty was cancelled out by Jonathan Wisniewski's kick, les Correzins were awarded a penalty try as Racing scrum-half Mathieu Lorée disrupted a scrum five after 10 minutes.

But Brive couldn't contain Racing's powerful pack (featuring a returning Sebastien Chabal), and transgressed time after time. Wisniewski added three penalties before the break and two in the second half to seal an impressive win for Racing.

Brive, meanwhile, sink deeper into turmoil and 48 hours after the defeat, coach Laurent Seigne followed Sebastien out of the club.

Toulon and Bourgoin shared nine tries at Stade Felix-Mayol, the hosts scoring six of them to claim a bonus point. Joe van Niekerk scored the first, galloping through a lineout to score from 25 metres out.

Coenie Basson pulled five points back for Bourgoin after 18 minutes, the visitors maul overpowering Toulon's surprisingly lightweight defence for the South African lock to dash over, but Pierre Mignoni restored the lead just three minutes later, the Italian tapping a quick penalty five metres out and wriggling his way through five defenders to give Toulon an 17-5 lead.

Benjamin Boyet's superb drop goal from the halfway line closed out the first half in style, but Toulon wasted no time after the break, lock Joselito Suta scoring three minutes into the half and Joe El-Abd capitalising on a fumble from Bourgoin prop Arnauld Tchougong to race over unopposed for Toulon's fourth try.

They had to wait for their fifth, Sylvain Nicolas coming out of the sinbin to score Bourgoin's second before Jonny Wilkinson added to his five conversions and two penalties with a great individual try, tapping a grubber through the Bourgoin line and gathering the bounce before pulling off two sidesteps to score under the posts.

Toulon had a bonus point in their grasp, but referee M. Soulan temporarily took it off them when he rather generously awarded Bourgoin a penalty try in the 79th minute. But not to be outdone, the hosts reclaimed the bonus with an 80th minute score, a tackled Van Niekerk seemingly getting away with not releasing the ball before getting to his feet and spreading the ball wide for Christian Loamanu to score in the corner and claim the fifth point.

Montauban got back to winning ways with a 20-6 win over bottom club Albi at Stade Sapiac's Tarn-Garonne derby. The hosts led 6-3 at half-time thanks to two Cedric Rosalen penalties to one from Frederic Manca, and although Manca levelled the scores after the break, Montauban took a lead they weren't to lose when flanker Antoine Battut received a long pass from scrum-half Julien Audy to race over from 15 metres.

There was a close call for Albi when full back Iuliuan Dumitras caught a cross-field kick and dive over the tryline only for the referee to judge than the Romanian had lost control of the ball before grounding, and that and three more Rosalen penalties put paid to Albi's hopes. Montauban put a little breathing space between themselves and the drop zone.