LONG READ France has conquered and reconquered Europe. Can it reach its Mount Everest?

The closing arguments have concluded and the judge has instructed the jury. The torch in European rugby has been passed from Ireland to France and there can be no more doubt about it. In the end, it was not even close. 100 points to 45, and two-nil to the Top 14 in the double-header between the French and Irish clubs played out at the San Mamés Stadium in Bilbao last weekend.

Montpellier Hérault dispatched Ulster 59-26 and Union Bordeaux-Bègles saw off four times winners Leinster 41-19. Friday evening or Saturday afternoon, the words which cut the deepest groove were those of Ulster coach Richie Murphy: “It’s a very difficult day. We came up against a real powerhouse of French rugby. They had too much power for us.”

Clubs from the Top 14 have now won 10 of the last 12 finals in the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup combined. It is neither an accident nor a monopoly. Three different teams – Stade Toulousain, Stade Rochelais and now UBB – have triumphed twice apiece in the last six European Champions Cups.

With Les Bleus adding Six Nations crowns in 2025 and 2026, France are the undisputed kings of Europe, and the Springboks are already firmly in their sights. South Africa will assuredly be next to hear the crow of the red cockerel across the dawn horizon. In the aftermath of events in the Basque country, the French sporting media were already highlighting both the indelible link, and a growing rivalry, between the two rugby superpowers.

The first round on the Highveld in Pretoria had set the tone for a UBB repeat, with Bordeaux coming from 12 points behind to beat a fully-loaded Bulls team away from home. They scored 19 unanswered points in the second half, at a time when most visitors are supposed to be gasping with the impact of altitude. 1-0 to La Belle France.

L’Equipe framed a narrative around UBB’s five-try, first-half destruction of the Jacques Nienaber-coached, Springboks-style Leinster defence, while Midi Olympique envisioned a ‘total rugby’ template which could topple the green-and-gold and win a World Cup in 2027. The magazine described the champions as a hybrid mix of South African physicality and naked French flair. The UBB scrum is anchored by refreshed ex-Sharks strongman Carlu Sadie, and the club numbers ex-Boks Shaun Sowerby and Heini Adams among its coaching alumni. 2-0 to Les Bleus.

The club from the Garonne is not just a merger of two clubs, Stade Bordelais and Club Athlétique Bordeaux-Bègles Gironde, it is a highly-successful fusion of influences, with the likes of Adams and Sowerby working in harness with a man who, along with Connacht supremo Stuart Lancaster, is one of the two brightest attacking minds in Irish rugby. Where Rassie can open the bidding with Kiwi Tony Brown, UBB can raise the stakes with Clare native Noel McNamara as their director of attacking operations.

McNamara learned his craft under Lancaster, before adding new creative nous to overlay the South African bedrock in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Top 14 athleticism, size and skill-sets complete the picture of a unique alchemy no other club anywhere in the world can equal: 3-0 to France.

So far, so good. South Africa will rightly counter by pointing out that France has zero experience of beating the Boks when it really matters, having won only one of the eight games played between the two nations over the last 10 years. In a titanic tussle in the quarter-finals of France’s home 2023 World Cup in Paris, the Bokke edged home by a solitary point, 29-28.

When Fabien Galthié’s men were gifted the opportunity to gain a measure of revanche, however cold it might be served up, last November, they failed the test. Despite being reduced to seven forwards for more than half the game, South Africa overwhelmed France physically and ran out convincing winners, 32-17. Furthermore, they won the second half decisively – by 19 points to three – with only 14 men on the field. That brings the score level at 3-3.

One of the classic Franco-South African confrontations highlighted in the build-up to the final was the collision between McNamara’s fluid attacking systems and Nienaber’s boa constrictor rush defence. As the Clare man noted in the aftermath:

“It’s a particular challenge. There is a bit of fool’s gold on the edges. They are very compact, and you can’t go and find that [space out wide] too soon, so it is about going direct. We have some players who are very good at that.

“It is not a defence that we come up against particularly often, and I can tell you that that really motivated the players. They were excited with the opportunity to attack against that. The best players are motivated by challenges and we saw that when we did put speed in the game. Obviously when there is no ruck, that is even better.”

Nothing epitomised the battle better than the left-side scrum launches UBB hosted in that first period, when the game was effectively won and lost. The tactical thrust-and-parry began in only the second minute of the game:

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) May 25, 2026

Leinster number 11 Rieko Ioane is angling in steeply off the left wing to effectively form a midfield four with Garry Ringrose, Robbie Henshaw and Harry Byrne inside him. At the critical moment, the Leinster midfield defenders outnumber the UBB midfield triangle, and the claustrophobia duly forces a handling error out of Bordelais number 12 Yoram Moefana.

The double European champions extracted their revenge in the 18^th minute:

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) May 25, 2026

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) May 25, 2026

Rieko Ioane is still defending tight, inside the near post, but in this instance UBB left wing Louis Bielle-Biarrey is fully integrated into the attack structure behind Moefana and fly-half Matthieu Jalibert. With Ringrose looking to cover the short ball to Damian Penaud (no.4 in graphic), Jalibert has the luxury of picking between two options as the play unwinds: if Ioane stays out he can pass short to Bielle-Biarrey; if Ioane comes in, he can pass long to full-back Salesi Rayasi and exploit the space out wide.

The options presented in this clip are typical of the Stuart Lancaster attack methods Noel McNamara would have learned in Dublin, and they illustrate clearly why defence in the contemporary era is becoming such an arduous task. As current France defensive guru Shaun Edwards observed after two Six Nations losses in which Les Bleus conceded 96 points:

“World Rugby want more points, and a lot of the rules have changed in favour of the attack. Back in 2010, you could have two or three people contesting in the ruck all at one time, and for two or three times. Now you can contest the ball once, with one player, who can only have one attempt.

“Another reason is the quality of the pitches. They are unrecognisable [now]. Most people when they go to watch rugby don’t go to watch defence, they go to watch attack. I used to say ‘keep them to under 20 points’ – so 16, 17 points. But now, a good day at the office for defence is 21, 22 points.

“We defended really strongly in the first three games, but when we played against the top teams – I think Scotland are one of the best attacking teams in the world and England are a very well-coached attacking team – then obviously we did struggle.”

Edwards was being conservative. Restricting the opponent to three tries and under 27 points is probably a more realistic aim for defensive coaches at the top level nowadays. The theme was repeated when UBB scored on a much longer sequence from a left-side scrum midway through the half:

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) May 25, 2026

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) May 25, 2026

In this example, UBB has the triple ‘I formation’ in place but Moefana simply ploughs a furrow through Harry Byrne straight up the middle, going direct without looking for the fool’s gold on the edges too early. Then the Bordeaux forwards take up the gauntlet, moving play all the way up to the Leinster goal-line with a series of strong carries. The coup de grâce is triggered by a Tommy O’Brien rush into midfield on the final phase. The Nienaber-coached Leinster scramble D would typically be expecting to shut down the play in cover defence, but against the road runner, the fastest flyer in the world? ‘One, two. Gone’ as the doyen of rugby commentators, Miles Harrison, phrased it so eloquently.

France has the best and most lucrative league competition in the world, and it will probably go from the strength to strength over the next few years. According to Simon Gillham, an Englishman who became the first overseas president of a Top 14 side with Brive, there are others in the Top 14 waiting to follow in the footsteps of Toulouse, La Rochelle and now UBB. “Winning brings winning and money brings money,” Gillham said. “Lyon will probably go that way, too – great infrastructure and they’re becoming a rugby city. I think it’s all quite sustainable at the moment. There’s a real buzz which is being helped by the national team.”

France has already conquered and reconquered Europe, at club level and in the Six Nations. Now its sights are firmly fixed on the Mount Everest that is Rassie Erasmus’ Springboks, the citadel of South African rugby. Fabien Galthié has to prove the UBB philosophy can translate to the national team against the sternest of opponents, in the arms race to a high-scoring summit at the World Cup in 2027. Les Bleus can either fulfil their destiny as the best team on the planet, or their apologists can redeploy their formidable array of excuses. They cannot do both.