All to play for in final days of the season

TOP 14 coaches, pundits and fans have had the calculators, slide rules and computer modelling programmes out this weekend as they worked through the permutations of the current campaign.

- JAMES HARRINGTON

One semi-final slot, four playoff places, Top 14 safety and both relegation-zone places were all still very much in play at the start of the penultimate weekend of the regular season.

Some sides had more sums to do than others. On Saturday night, Toulon faced the first of two season-defining Top 14 matches, which sandwich the Challenge Cup final against Glasgow in Dublin.

Make no mistake, Toulon will be up for Friday's match at the Aviva and not just because they came up short last year against Lyon and in 2020 against Bristol. They haven't opened their trophy cabinet since winning the Champions. Cup for a third time in 2015, and desperately want to start adding to their collection again.

And then there's the small matter of their Top 14 challenge, which is overshadowed by a problem entirely of their own making. Toulon have made no secret of their play-off ambitions. Three matches ago, they were fourth and well-placed for the final phase. They headed into Saturday evening's match against Racing 92, in Le Havre, having dropped provisionally to eighth in the table on the back of two defeats in as many matches.

But trying to fight their way back into the top six wasn't Toulon's only problem as the Top 14 season draws to a close. Their squad for the first of two vital domestic games against top six sides and their own play-off hopes at stake was almost unrecognisable.

There was no Cheslin Kolbe, Jiuta Wainiqolo, or Dan Biggar. Sergio Parisse was a notable absentee, as were Waisea Nayacalevu and Facundo Isa.