France Men's Elite 1: 2025-26

The eleven teams that make up the Elite 1 first division are listed below. The top six spots are sought after, as this determines who makes the finals/

The League: Carcassonne took the league title from Limoux and Pia. Avigon put behind itself a poor previous season to make the finals this year. St Estève-Catalan and Toulouse Olympique have teams playing in the European Super League and act as feeder clubs for them. 

The Finals: Albi and Avignon could hardly be separated in the league and again in the quarter final. It was more decisive in the other match with Limoux too strong for St Estève-Catalan.

Carcassonne and Pia joined the semi finals and their being the top sides in the league showed. Albi put up a brave fight against a much more fancied opponent, going down 12-35. I thought Limoux may have 

kept the score closer.

The two previous finals featured Carcassonne and Albi, Carcassonne won two years ago and Albi last year. Carcassonne was back to make up for the 2025 final loss with a different opponent. It was 12-12 at the break and 30-30 at full time. XIII Pia prevailed in a close and entertaining match. 

The video features the match. You will need to speed past the introduction to see the game and the commentary is in French. Well worth a look. 

France Women Elite 1: 2026

After extensive searching for historical information of the women's game in France, it became obvious that it has virtually zero recognition or interest. Had I been following year by year, I presume I'd have more information but posted, it doesn't remain long on the Internet. 

Cup Final: Lescure Arthes led 14-4 at half time and 20-4 with a quarter of the game remaining. Then St Estève Catalan made a stunning comeback but just fell short 20-18. 

League: To the right is the 2026 season. Only five sides competed, although the Elite 2 has seven teams. Why not six each? Regardless, each team plays the others twice.

The top two are evenly matched but the rest are some way below, the points difference indicating the gap. Limoux is straddles the two each side of it. 

Finals: In the semi finals, Lescure Arthes cruised into the final 60-0, The other game was a draw, with Limoux advancing due to outscoring St Estève Catalan 4-3 in tries. A novel way of deciding.

The Final: The semi final scores probably determined who was likely to win if not the league table. Lescure Arthes won 46-6 after leading 10-6 at the break. Full coverage of the game is below.  You may want to go past some extraneous content.

UK Women's Challenge Cup: 2026

The women's version is different to the men's. There were eleven teams participating and they played in four groups of three with one group with just two sides. Then it went to the quarter finals with only three teams dropping out. For the two team group, they both qualified, which I found odd.

It didn't make any difference as one team is head and shoulders above the rest of the teams. That is confirmed by the results below. In fact, depth is one thing the women's game in the UK is embarrassingly short of. All about a lack of funding for many clubs.

In the quarter finals, only Huddersfield put up any sort of resistance. In the semi finals, Leeds and Saints was a contest but Wign overran York. Saints won the final two years ago, defeating Leeds. Last year, Wigan won the trophy 42-6. The question was could Saints reverse that? 

Only a rabid Saint's apologist would have thought so. Wigan thrashed them 52-6 after leading 28-6 at the break. The highlights video is below. 

Photo: Wigan Warriors.