Top 14, r3 review: Wilkinson's boot fires Toulon up to third; Perpignan beat Toulouse

"We're not frustrated," said Elissalde afterwards. "We didn't know when to alternate our game between passing, running and kicking."

Delighted Perpignan coach Jacques Brunel said: "We found our spirit in this corresponding game last year, and we did well defensively, but also we tried to attack and were not stingy in our intentions. Unlike last Saturday in Montpellier we won our duels today, and that certainly made a difference."

Perpignan’s victory means there is now just one team left with a 100% win record in Top 14 after only three rounds – and that’s Castres, although they didn’t even play on Saturday following the postponement of their away trip to Montauban.

The Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR) decided caution would be the better part of valour after six Castres players and their team physio were confirmed as contracting the H1N1 (swine-flu) virus.

The only other team to enter the weekend with two wins from two had been Clermont.

Conversely, Stade Francais went into round three still winless and on the back of their worst league start for six years, but they finally registered their first victory as they beat Montpellier 43-26, although not before conceding three tries on home turf and having to rally from 13-23 down.

Mark Gasnier (two tries) and fly-half Lionel Beauxis (four penalties and two conversions) were the Stade heroes, saving coach Ewen McKenzie’s blushes as they racked up 30 points in equal time to complete the fight-back.

It had all looked so different earlier in the match as Stade’s frustrations mounted during a topsy-turvy first half. Montpellier, bolstered by last week’s home win against Perpignan, started brightly and soon found themselves 13-3 to the good thanks to Jacques Boussuge’s 19^th-minute try.

The Paris side battled back but weren’t aided by the television referee, who disallowed two claimed tries by England lock Tom Palmer.

It took Gasnier’s opening try - after a plethora of missed tackles - to get them back on track, but half-time parity at 13-13 quickly faded from memory as Montpellier scored twice in the opening five minutes after the restart. The influential Boussuge was first over – to complete his own brace – before Jacques Schutte added the second, although both conversions were missed by Benjamin Thiéry.

But the double whammy served to inspire Stade and Mirco Bergamasco’s 50^th-minute try brought renewed hope. Beauxis converted, and when two more penalties flew over the home side had acquired the lead for the first time in the match (at 26-23).

Pascal Pape then powered over for Stade’s third try, before Gasnier’s 70m dash in the final minute secured the win, and robbed Montpellier of a hard-fought bonus point in the process. Not many teams go to Paris and return empty-handed after scoring three tries, and Montpol will rue the two spurned conversions by Thiéry.

It was certainly a debut that Stade’s summer signing Ollie Philips won’t forget in a hurry after the England sevens captain recovered from his hamstring strain sufficiently to finally pull on the Paris club’s garish shirt.

Racing-Métro 92 – Paris’ other club – continued their impressive start to the campaign with an 18-9 home win over Bayonne, with veteran All Blacks fly-half Andrew Mehrtens kicking three penalties on his Top 14 debut. There was also a late hat-trick of drop-goals from Fabien Fortassin as they condemned Bayonne to a pointless return back to the Basque country.

They will be joined there by a red-faced Biarritz following their 22-17 reverse at bottom club (and financially crippled) Bourgoin. The hosts went into the match with 12 player licences still blocked and having agreed a 15% wage cut on Friday after the collapse of a potential rescue package.

Yet they put their off-field worries behind them with a morale-boosting home win against Biarritz, with David Janin’s sixth-minute try sending them on their way. After that it was Benjamin Boyet’s booming boot (five penalties and a drop-goal) which kept them ahead in a feisty encounter which also saw four yellow cards - for Bourgoin's Karena Wihongi and Sylvain Nicolas, and Biarritz's Jean-Baptiste Gobelet and Mocard Tanguy.

Biarritz did manage two tries of their own – through Rudi Coetzee after good work by Ayoola Erinle, and a penalty try – but had to settle for a defensive bonus for their efforts.