The 1999–2000 French Rugby Union Championship was played by 24 teams divided in the preliminary phase in two pool of 12. The first two team of each pool were directly admitted to the quarter-finals. The team classified from 3rd to 6th of each pool were admitted to a Barrage round. The four winners were admitted also to the quarter of finals.
Stade Français won the title beating Colomiers in the final (at the first final of their history). It was the second victory for the Stade Français in the professional era.
Ath the end of the season four team were relegated to lower division: Montauban, Toulon, Racing Paris, Nîmes. There was only one promotion from second division, (Béziers), in order to reduce to 21 the number of clubs in first division in 1999–2000, and 16 in the 2000–01 season.
Teams Participating
Agen Auch Aurillac Biarritz Bègles-Bordeaux Bourgoin Brive Castres Colomiers Dax Grenoble Montauban (promoted)
Montferrand Narbonne Nîmes Périgueux Perpignan Racing club de France Pau Stade Français Mont-de-Marsan (promoted) La Rochelle Toulon Toulouse
Preliminary round
Pool 1
Pos Team Points 1 Toulouse 58 2 Stade Français 47 3 Colomiers 47 4 Dax 46 5 Brive46 6 Perpignan 46 7 La Rochelle 45 8 Narbonne 43 9 FC Auch 41 10 Grenoble41 11 Aurillac 38 12 US Montauban 28
Pool 2 Pos Team Points 1 Castres olympique 54 2 Section paloise 54 3 SU Agen 53 4 AS Montferrand 50 5 CS Bourgoin-Jallieu 48 6 Biarritz olympique 48 7 CA Bègles-Bordeaux 48 8 Stade montois 44 9 RC Toulon 43 10 CA Périgueux 36 11 Racing club de France 28 12 RC Nîmes 22
To Quarter of finals To barrage for title To barrage for relegation relegated to second division Because of a default of 10 million French francs, the Ligue Nationale de Rugby relegated the June 24, 2000 the RC Toulon in the second division.
A Barrage match was arranged between Aurillac and Racing Paris. It was won by Aurillac, that remain in first division.
Barrage 24 jun.Dax-Biarritz24–3724 jun.Agen-Perpignan32–3324 jun.Colomiers-Bourgoin20–1824 jun.Montferrand-Brive41–23
Quarter of finals 1 jul.Biarritz-Toulouse18–28 o.t.1 jul.Stade Français-Perpignan25–151 jul.Pau-Montferrand28–271 jul.Castres-Colomiers15–29
Semifinals 8 jul.Toulouse-Stade Français13–308 jul.Pau-Colomiers22–24
Final
FB 15 Conrad StoltzRW 14 Christophe Dominici OC 13 Franck Comba IC 12 Cliff Mytton LW 11 Nicolas Raffault FH 10 Diego Dominguez SH 9 Christophe Laussucq N8 8 Christophe Juillet (c)OF 7 Richard Pool-Jones BF 6 Christophe Moni RL 5 Hervé Chaffardon LL 4 David Auradou TP 3 Pieter de Villiers HK 2 Laurent Pedrosa LP 1 Sylvain Marconnet Substitutions:HK 16 Fabrice Landreau PR 17 Justin Wring LK 18 Darren George FL 19 Pierre Rabadan SH 20 Jérémie Foissac FB 21 Sylvain Jonnet FB 22 Arthur Gomes Coach:no head coach FB 15 Jean-Luc Sadourny (c)RW 14 Sébastien Roque OC 13 Mickaël Carré IC 12 Jérôme Sieurac LW 11 Benjamin LhandeFH 10 David Skrela SH 9 Fabrice Culinat N8 8 Francis Ntamack OF 7 Patrick Tabacco BF 6 Bernard de Giusti RL 5 Jean-Marc Lorenzi LL 4 Jean-Philippe Revallier TP 3 Jeremy Tomuli HK 2 Christophe Laurent LP 1 Stéphane Delpuech Substitutions:HK 16 Marc Dal Maso PR 17 Stéphane Graou FL 18 Philippe Magendie FL 19 Hervé Manent N8 20 Stéphane Peysson SH 21 Frédéric Pédoussaut CE 22 Laurent Marticorena Coach: Henri Auriol
References