Ranking Europe's Top 15 Club Teams After Weekend of March 28-29

We return our attentions to club rugby this week after that thrilling climax to the Six Nations.

The top domestic leagues are all getting set for the final push for the play-offs, and in some cases the rash of points we saw in the final weekend of the Six Nations continued.

In France, there were bloody noses for the top two, and in the Pro 12 a ding-dong draw between two of the top four.

It has been a while since we checked in on this ranking, so it’s worth refreshing the ground rules. Teams flying high in their league and still battling it out in the top tier of European competition, the Champions Cup, get top billing.

Teams doing well domestically and who were knocked out in the pool stages of the Champions Cup are next, with those progressing through the lower level Challenge Cup and doing reasonably well at home behind them.

Clear? Good.

Let’s see where they rank.

Toulouse refuse to be shaken off the scent of a top-four slot in France after crashing out of Europe on the final day of pool play.

They proved their intent with a command performance to beat Toulon 34-24 at Stade Velodrome in Marseilles, where the reigning champs had not lost until this game and led 24-20 with 20 minutes remaining.

The result truncates things at the top of the league and keeps Guy Noves’ men in with a shout of making the play-offs.

This edges them ahead of Exeter.

The Chiefs lost ground on the top four with defeat away to Leicester. And their run-in is not the easiest, with Northampton, Wasps, Saracens and Sale to play.

In addition, Rob Baxter’s men have the Challenge Cup quarter-finals to contend with. After an LV Cup run that took them all the way to the final, it’s a tall order for his squad to finish this season on full gas.

The Ospreys carried out another Welsh massacre of Italian opposition with a 53-22 demolition at home to Zebre.

The win leaves Steve Tandy’s men in fourth, two behind Munster and Ulster and back in charge of their own destiny, per Wales Online:

The seven-try success allowed them to leapfrog Leinster into fourth and hold a four-point advantage over their Irish rivals, with only the leading quartet in the league achieving qualification for the play-offs at the end of May.

A last eight in Europe without Munster has been a rare occurrence in the history of European competition.

But the red men are left with only the Pro 12 to fight for this season.

They are now third, two points off top spot, after a 42-20 crushing of Connacht which boasted six different try scorers for Anthony Foley’s side.

Ulster occupy second spot in the Pro 12 after a 36-17 win over Cardiff Blues. It was a good way to recover from a 26-22 defeat in the previous round to the Dragons.

Neil Doak’s men have all three other Irish sides left to play as well as Glasgow, which puts their fate well and truly in their own grasp with three of those teams in the top five as the table stands.

Leicester are out of Europe but have clawed their way into fourth place in the Premiership with a run of five consecutive wins.

The last of them came, crucially, against top-four rivals Exeter, who now sit a point behind Richard Cockerill’s men.

The Leicester Mercury attributed the result to a less porous rearguard compared to earlier in the campaign:

In the end, the difference between the two teams was Tigers' magnificent defence, which conceded two controversial tries but also stood up to a constant assault for 28 phases of play in their own 22 during a remarkable first-half period.

No Europe for the Parisians in pink to worry about for the rest of the season, so Stade can train all their guns on the Top14, and they began the home stretch with a handsome win over Clermont Auvergne.

They have been in and around the top three all season, but this ranking gives more weighting to the sides doing well both at home and in the biggest European competition, so Stade are ranked ninth, accordingly.

Glasgow stay top of the Pro 12 after sharing a 34-34 thriller away to Leinster.

While they head the Irishmen in the Pro 12 by some distance, it’s the Dubliners who are in the last eight of the Champions Cup, so Leinster rank higher here.

All the same, Glasgow will feel frustrated at letting a 27-7 half-time lead slip in the Irish capital.

Indeed, they needed Peter Horne’s last-minute conversion to salvage the draw after Glenn Bryce’s late try. Three points from the night is not a bad haul, but it could have been more.

Wasps are sixth and seven points off a play-off place in the Premiership, but they currently get a respectable rank here due to their presence in the knockout phase of the Champions Cup.

Consistency has been hard to come by for Dai Young’s men this season, and despite a hat-trick from England candidate Christian Wade, they were well beaten in the end by Northampton.

With Nathan Hughes in the dock over the incident that left George North with another concussion, it has not been the best preparation for a trip to European champions Toulon.

Bath rested their England players for the trip to London Welsh but might still have hoped for a bigger result than the 23-9 win they secured.

With no disrespect to London Welsh, Bath have bigger, Leinster-shaped fish to fry, but this was the second win in five attempts in the league and shores up what was starting to look like a dubious spot in the top four.

Leinster atoned for a poor first half to come roaring back at Glasgow to earn a 34-34 draw.

Two tries from scrum-half Isaac Boss helped them mount their comeback, but as they limber up for the Champions quarter-final with Bath this weekend, they will know they can ill afford to allow the likes of Jonathan Joseph room to threaten them out wide.

They need to pull their socks up in the Pro 12 if they are to make the play-offs, lingering in fifth spot with only four rounds left.

Racing are fourth in the Top 14, but their presence in the last eight of the Champions Cup leapfrogs them over Paris rivals Stade Francais, who are third in France but out of Europe’s Challenge Cup after a poor show in the pool stage.

A tight 12-6 win away to Bayonne was secured with six points apiece from Jonny Sexton and Maxime Machenaud, whose 71st-minute strike was the decisive blow for the visitors.

Racing have shown a lot of this grit so far this season and will need more of it to stop Saracens in their tracks this weekend.

Clermont upheld their tradition of folding like a cheap deck chair when they leave their home town with a 40-26 loss to top-four rivals Stade Francais.

Just as well they are at home next week when Northampton pay them a visit in the last eight of Europe.

But the Saints will fancy the job against Clermont if they can weather the home fervour and early pressure that will undoubtedly come their way.

Saracens set a new world record with more than 84,000 in attendance for their clash at Wembley with Harlequins, which they won 42-14 with braces from Chris Ashton and Chris Wyles.

It tees Sarries up nicely for their trip to Racing Metro in the European Champions Cup. And it renewed questions over Ashton’s claims for a return to the England fold, per Paul Rees in the Guardian:

Ashton has been cast adrift by England mainly because of his perceived tendency to go wandering in defence, but in a World Cup squad of 31 he would offer finishing power against the weaker teams in a group including Wales and Australia that may come down to points difference.

Ashton looked sharp and focused against Harlequins at Wembley on Saturday, scoring two tries, and with Saracens competing on two fronts going into the final straight of the season, he will be back in the shop window.

Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal was so upset at his team’s defeat to Toulouse that he has sent back the Bouclier de Brennus to the league authorities.

The comic-book millionaire doesn’t think his players are worthy of the giant wooden shield awarded to the French champions, per Planet Rugby.

When he has calmed down, he’ll realise they are still top in France and that a home quarter-final in Europe against Wasps is a hugely winnable game for the reigning kings of the continent.

The Saints still lead the way by 10 points in the Premiership, helped by a 52-30 thrashing of Wasps under the Friday night lights at the Gardens.

A topsy-turvy contest saw the English champions fall 20-8 behind after half an hour, but three tries in a frantic five minutes brought them into a 27-20 lead before half-time.

The turning point came with a red card for Wasps No. 8 Nathan Hughes after making contact with George North’s head and knocking him out as the Welshman scored his second of the night.

Following the two head knocks North suffered during Wales’ defeat to England in February, this third episode prompted World Rugby concussion advisor Professor Willie Stewart to tell the Mail on Sunday:

I think he personally needs to say, 'No, I'm not playing again this season'. If he does play again too soon it could be the end of his World Cup or even his career.

The people looking after him, including Northampton and the Welsh Rugby Union, should be recommending some time out and the experts he is seeing should recommend some time out.

No-one should be talking about playing him next week. That's just ridiculous.

If that was North’s last contribution of the season, it was as part of a side who were the only league leaders in the top three leagues in Europe to win at the weekend, and they did it against a fellow top-four side, too.

First place belongs to the Saints this week.