The 2008–09 Top 14 Competition was a French domestic rugby union club competition operated by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR). It ran from late August 2008 through the final at Stade de France on June 6, 2009, in which Perpignan lifted the Bouclier de Brennus with a 22–13 win over Clermont.

Quick Facts Countries, Champions ...

2008–09 Top 14 season
Countries	France
Champions	Perpignan (7th title)
Runners-up	Clermont
Relegated	Mont-de-Marsan, Dax
Matches played	185
Attendance	2,362,394 (average 12,770 per match)
Highest attendance	79,842 Stade Français v Clermont 4 April 2009
Lowest attendance	4,428 Bourgoin v Mont-de-Marsan 13 September 2008
Tries scored	610 (average 3.3 per match)
Top point scorer	Brock James (324)
Top try scorer	Napolioni Nalaga (21)
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This year's edition of the Top 14 welcomed Toulon, winners of the 2008 title in the second-level Pro D2, and Mont-de-Marsan, victors in the 2008 promotion playoffs between the second- through fifth-place teams in Pro D2. They took the place of Auch and Albi, relegated at the end of the 2007–08 Top 14. Auch, which had been promoted to the Top 14 for 2007–08, finished bottom of the table and went down. The other newly promoted team in 2007–08, Dax, finished second-from-bottom, but were reprieved when French sporting authorities forcibly relegated 12th-place Albi to Pro D2 due to financial issues.

Each club plays every other club twice. The second half of the season is conducted in the same order as the first, with the club at home in the first half of the season away in the second. As in previous seasons, the top four clubs at the end of the home-and-away season advanced to a single-elimination playoff. The semifinals were held at neutral sites on May 29 and 30, with the final at Stade de France on June 6.

Going into the season, the top six clubs were guaranteed of berths in the 2009–10 Heineken Cup, with the possibility of a seventh if a French club had advanced further in the 2008–09 Heineken Cup than any team from England or Italy. However, the seventh French berth did not materialize this season, as the only Top 14 club to make the knockout stage, Toulouse, were eliminated in the quarterfinals, while England's Leicester Tigers reached the final (where they lost to Irish side Leinster). The sixth-place team would have been relegated to the 2009–10 European Challenge Cup if 11th-place Bourgoin had won the 2008–09 Challenge Cup final on 22 May; however, Bourgoin were defeated by English side Northampton Saints.

The bottom two teams are provisionally relegated to Pro D2, with the possibility of one or both of the bottom teams to be reprieved if a team above them fails a postseason financial audit (mandatory for all clubs in the league).

The LNR uses a slightly different bonus points system from that used in most other rugby competitions. It trialled a new system in 2007-08 explicitly designed to prevent a losing team from earning more than one bonus point in a match,^[2] a system that also makes it impossible for either team to earn a bonus point in a drawn match. LNR chose to continue with this system for 2008-09.^[3]

France's bonus point system operates as follows:^[3]

• 4 points for a win.
• 2 points for a draw.
• 1 "bonus" point for winning while scoring at least 3 more tries than the opponent. This replaces the standard bonus point for scoring 4 tries regardless of the match result.
• 1 "bonus" point for losing by 7 points (or less).

While the four playoff teams—Perpignan, Toulouse, Clermont, and Stade Français—separated themselves from the pack fairly early in the season, it was Toulouse who were the form team in the first half of the season; they had a Top 14-record streak of 11 wins from Round 5 through Round 15. However, Perpignan surged in the second half of the season, finishing level with Toulouse on the season log; the Catalans claimed the top seed on the first tiebreaker of head-to-head competition points. Biarritz used a late-season surge to claim fifth place, while the final Heineken Cup berth was ultimately decided in the final round, when Brive's draw with Bourgoin combined with Bayonne's win over Stade Français without a bonus point left Brive and Bayonne level on the log; Brive won on the second tiebreaker of head-to-head scoring.

At the other end of the ladder, Mont-de-Marsan were rarely competitive and finished bottom. The second relegation place finally fell on Dax, after Bourgoin, Castres, and the highly ambitious Toulon spent time in relegation trouble.

For much of the season, Bourgoin faced another type of relegation trouble—financial. At the end of each season, all teams in both divisions of LNR must pass a financial audit conducted by DNACG (Direction nationale d'aide et de contrôle de gestion), LNR's financial arm, to be able to keep their professional licenses. The club were able to satisfy DNACG that they had sufficient financial guarantees to participate in Top 14 and were thus allowed to stay in the top flight.^[4]

• Second division: 2008–09 Rugby Pro D2 season

• Note that points scorers includes tries as well as conversions, penalties and drop goals.

More information Rank, Player ...

Top points scorers Rank Player Club Points 1 Brock James Clermont 324 2 Andy Goode Brive 235 3 Lionel Beauxis Stade Français 212 4 Benjamin Boyet Bourgoin 207 5 Romain Teulet Castres 195 6 Dimitri Yachvili Biarritz 193 7 Jérôme Porical Perpignan 176 8 Antoine Vignau-Tuquet Dax 160 9 Fabien Fortassin Montauban 148 10 Cédric Garcia Bayonne 116 [23]

Top try scorers Rank Player Club Tries 1 Napolioni Nalaga Clermont 21 2 Vilimoni Delasau Montauban 10 Takudzwa Ngwenya Biarritz 10 Sam Gerber Bayonne 10 3 Julien Candelon Perpignan 9 Anthony Floch Clermont 9 4 Mathieu Bastareaud Stade Français 8 5 Byron Kelleher Toulouse 7 Maxime Médard Toulouse 7 Neumi Nanuku Dax 7 Aurélien Rougerie Clermont 7 [23]

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• Attendances do not include the semi-finals or final as these are at neutral venues.

• 2008–09 Heineken Cup
• 2008–09 Rugby Pro D2 season