Le Rugby's chosen Fédérale 1 team, Le Bugue, continue their poor start to the season with a 14-27 home defeat to Tyrosse. But we haven't given up hope. Honest.

Le Bugue 14 Tyrosse 27: Two matches in and Le Bugue sit bottom of Pool 6 without a single point after Tyrosse outside-half Thierry Dupré kicked the visitors to victory to spoil the opening match of the season at Stade Renaud-Curvellier. Dupré's two first-half penalties and a 16th minutes drop goal gave the visitors from the Landes a 9-7 half time lead. Le Bugue's points came from a superb try for winger Morgan Souply, captain Terry Fanolua timing his pass perfectly for Souply to burst through the Tyrosse centres to score and put les buguois 7-3 up.

Le Bugue had all the posession and consistently put the visitors under pressure, but outside half Tom Marks was having an off day with the boot, and missed three easy first-half penalties; Dupré, on the other hand, was on metronomic form and kicked Tyrosse into a 12-7 lead just after the break. It was 17-9 on 51 minutes when winger Benjamin Lolom latched onto a huge pass from scrum-half Paul Dubert and went over in the corner. Dupré kicked his fourth penalty, and it got worse for Le Rugby's favourite Fed 1 outfit when Tyrosse hooker Jonathan Krieff beat all-comers to ground lock Maxime Samson's hack on to make it 27-7.

Le Bugue full back Charly Platek scored a consolation try two minutes from time, but by then the game was up and Le Bugue were left wondering how they had thrown away a match they could have won. "We played in reverse," said Platek. "We lost the physical battle. If you can't fight, you won't win the match." President Louis Niessen suggested that Le Bugue's new signings might take a little longer to gel. "We were caught cold by a team that will finish in the top two of the pool this season," he said. For Le Bugue, the only way is up.

Second string: Different team, same result - Le Bugue A lost 8-33 to Tyrosse reserves in the day's curtain-raiser.

Also in Pool 6: Oloron 31 Lourdes 26; Graulhet 9 Langon 16; Vallée du Girou 12 Périgeux 24

Next up: Périgueux vs Le Bugue, Stade Municipalde Périgeux, Sunday October 4. It's Dordogne derby time, and probably the last game our Bugue boys would want after two successive defeats. Périgueux is just 40 kilometres from Le Bugue, but the two are miles apart at the moment - les Perigourdins responded to their week 1 defeat at Tyrosse with a 24-12 victory at Vallée du Girou, and their ever-presence in the Federale 1 Jean-Prat play-offs points to a top-half finish again this season.

Périgueux fell out of Pro D2 in 2004/05, but came within one match of returning to the second tier in 2007 and 2008, and reached the play-off quarter-finals last season. The club reinforced heavily in the summer, the star signings being 12-cap Georgian prop David Dadunashvili, his club-and-country teammate Alexandre Margvelashvili and 15-times Canadian international lock Colin Yukes. But just as important will be the successful retention of 2009 top scorer Cyril Duroueix and winger Renaud Delmas, who scored 10 tries last term.

We can end our preview with the ominous words of Le Bugue scrum-half Francois Bourgeois. "It's the three first games that determine what kind of season you'll have, and as we know that we're going to Périgueux next week, we're already thinking about staying up rather than the play-offs," he said.

The news Fed-lines: The day's big match at Marseille-Vitrolles saw visitors and promotion favourites Carcassonne come away with a 22-17 win. They played 40 minutes of the game a man up, and 20 minutes with 15 players against 13 after the 18th minute dismissal of Tongan centre Kiri Mariner and subsequent sin-binning of David Gerard and Stephane Niego. Carcassonne's Guillaume Bienvenu and Marseille's Frederic Ourabah swapped tries late on, bt Guillaume Garcia's 17 points had already guided Carcassonne to their second win from two games.

Beziers are also two-for-two after a 33-14 win at Bédarrides, scrum-half Terry Bouhraoua bagging two tries for the 11-times champions and Josi du Toit adding a third after the break. Vannes keep their 100% record with a late, late win over Limoges, replacement full-back Jerome Obligy obliging with the match-winning try in the third minute of injury time at the end of the game. Relegated Bourg-en-Bresse are setting themselves up for a quick return with five tries in a 42-10 win over Tours, but big-spending Nice lost their first game after last week's wash-out, falling 25-20 at Romans.

You can find all the latest Federale 1 results at ItsRugby.fr