Top 14 Club by Club guide for 2010/11

Big-spenders Toulon bounced back from their opening-day home defeat by Bayonne with an impressive 3-13 away win at Biarritz - their first on the Basque coast for 29 years.

Their victory was achieved with considerable help from their burgeoning Brit-pack, with veteran lock Kris Chesney getting the game's only try - and his first for the club - while Jonny Wilkinson landed a conversion, drop-goal and penalty to seal the win.

Toulon were also captained on the evening by former Bristol skipper Joe El-Abd, who took over the leadership role due to the combined absence of Joe Van Niekerk (injured) and Juan Sebastien Lobbe (rested).

The victory was just reward for Toulon as they dominated for large parts of a scrappy game that featured an incredible 27 knock-ons.

Wilkinson, playing his first game of the season, had already missed a drop-goal and penalty attempt by the time that 36-year-old Chesney powered over for his maiden Toulon try on 26 minutes after good work from El-Abd and scrum-half Fabien Cibray. Wilkinson made no mistake with the conversion this time, and although Dimitri Yachvili snaffled a penalty response for Biarritz it remained 3-7 to Toulon at the break.

A massive hit from Kiwi winger Rudi Wulf on opposite number Philippe Bidabé underlined Toulon's aggression at the restart, and the visitors finally bought themselves some breathing space when Wilkinson landed a 58th-minute penalty and 63rd-minute drop-goal.

That gave Toulon a 10-point advantage and in truth they could have stretched that further in the closing stage, but Paul Sackey and Matt Henjak were both denied tries.

"Tonight I saw the desire and commitment," said a delighted Philippe Saint-André after the final whistle. "Today there were no stars, but a team. In rugby there must always be champions, but the star is the team," he added.

Biarritz's Australian backs coach Jack Isaac was at a loss to explain why his team had committed so many unforced errors, including a whopping 16 knock-ons. "I honestly cannot understand how we could make so many handling errors," he lamented.  

Elsewhere, Stade Francais and Bayonne both maintained their winning starts to the season with home victories over La Rochelle and Su Agen respectively on Friday night.

Stade had to come from behind after an early Florian Ninard try and two Maxime Lebourhis penalties saw the 'Maritimers' open up an 11-3 lead after 24 minutes. But as with last weekend's dismantling of Bourgoin the Parisians' growing pressure eventually brought tries, and five of them.

Indeed, the similarity to the Bourgoin result was startling, with four of Stade's opening day try-scorers repeating their efforts as Mathieu Bastareaud, Dimitri Szarzewski, Hugo Southwell and Julian Arias all touched down. The latter three all crossed during a five-minute purple spell midway through the second half, adding to the earlier efforts Bastareaud (28 mins) and English winger Ollie Phillips (45).

Scrum-half Julien Dupuy kicked all five conversions and two penalties for a match haul of 16 points, leaving him the league's leading scorer with 34 after just two games. But new coach Michael Cheika's hopes of emerging with a maximum 10 points from 10 after two games were dashed seven from time when winger Thomas Combezou touched down for his second try of the half and La Rochelle's third of the game.

It was enough to deny Stade a valuable attacking bonus but they will still go into next weekend's away trip to Stade Toulousain in good heart.

Bayonne followed up their shock win at Toulon with a more workmanlike 27-0 home victory against SU Agen.

Agen were immediately on the back foot after Miguel Avramovic's second-minute yellow card - for a high tackle on Sam Gerber - and Bayonne soon opened up a 10-0 lead courtesy of Rob Linde's eighth-minute try and five points from fly-half Benjamin Boyet.

The former Bourgoin player added a penalty on 27 minutes before Italian international Craig Gower waltzed in for the home team's second try on the half hour. Boyet again converted but it remained 20-0 until three minutes from time before Lionel Mazars powered through to seal the attacking bonus.

The Basques were down to 14 men by then after Renaud Boyoud's late yellow card, but an impressive return of nine points from a possible 10 after two games is all that matters for Christian Gajan and his squad.