Weekend Round-Up: Five of the best from the Top 14 and Aviva Premiership

High-tension, high-scoring, all-action games from the Top 14 and Aviva Premiership to watch while you wait impatiently for the next round of the Six Nations and/or the start of the Super Rugby season.

Aviva Premiership: Worcester Warriors vs Exeter Chiefs
Full Game | Condensed
There’s something about Exeter. A week after they were involved in a 70-point 10-try thriller at Sandy Park, they headed to Sixways – this time for an 11-try, 80-point extravaganza. Three of the visitors seven tries came in 10 minutes early in the second half, while Warriors’ Alafoti Faosiliva was in the sin-bin for a clumsy off-the-ball tackle. Despite that setback, the hosts – 11th in the table and desperate to put clear water between themselves and basement club Bristol – kept up the fight until the final whistle, managing a vital try-scoring bonus of their own at the death.

Top 14: Clermont v Bayonne
Full Game | Condensed
Clermont are used to being in the mix for top spot in the Top 14, but the pressure this season is coming from an unlikely source. Having seen La Rochelle beat Stade Francais the previous evening, Franck Azema’s men knew only a bonus-point win over bottom-of-the-table Bayonne would be good enough to take them back to the head of the table. What followed at Stade Marcel Michelin involved nine tries, three of them coming in the last five minutes – and the matter of the hosts’ bonus point still very much in the balance after the hooter sounded.

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Top 14: Pau vs Grenoble
Full Game | Condensed
Pau were looking for their sixth Top 14 win in a row to consolidate their place in the all-important top six. Grenoble, for whom the Six Nations break could not have come at a worse time, were looking to build on a domestic improvement as their Irish head coach plots an unlikely great escape from the relegation zone. After Pau’s Colin Slade had opened the scoring with a 40-yard drop goal, the visitors drew first try-scoring blood. The two sides continued to duke it out all game, as lowly Grenoble refused to give up, and the result was far from a foregone conclusion until the closing minutes.

Top 14: Bordeaux vs Castres Olympique
Full Game | Condensed
What do you get when a side that has not won a match at home for three months entertains one that has only won once on the road this season? You get this tense, all-action affair which takes on extra importance as the business-end of the Top 14 season looms closer. Results elsewhere in France this weekend meant that this was a must-win game for both teams, who have ambitions of the play-offs and a place in next season’s Champions League. At the end of the 80 minutes, one of them has seen itself cast adrift of the all-important top six places, while the other leapt up the table to – for a while at least – third.

Aviva Premiership: Newcastle Falcons vs Northampton Saints
Full Game | Condensed
Kingston Park descended into an early silence as notorious slow starters Northampton fairly exploded out of the blocks and raced in two tries in the opening six minutes. While that would have been enough to see other sides roll over and die, Dean Richards’ Falcons have been hewn out of sterner stuff – and clawed their way back into a game that is worth the entry fee simply for the non-stop opening period. The second period was even better, as the two side matched the try-count of Worcester and Exeter.