Lille & Montpellier to clash for French Championship

This will be LIlle's second final, after they lost to Montpellier in 2013. They topped the league with a win at Montpellier in the final round of games, and last weekend the beat fourth-placed Perpignan in the play-off semi-finals by 36-9.

The win was not as easy as the score line suggests. Perpignan began the strongest, putting Lille under pressure, picking up two penalties that Christelle le Duff had no problems converting. After fifteen minutes Perpignan led 6 to 0.  LMRCV pulled a try back, but le Duff soon extended the Perpignan lead to 9-5 on 32minutes.

The game remained well balanced and just before half-time the Lille forwards took their chance, with prop Macquarts friving over to put her team in the lead 10-9

When the second half opened Lille took the offensive. Two early tries were disallowed due to knock-ons but the game was now almost entirely in the Perpignan end of the field, and more scores were inevitable.Two penalty tries extended the lead to 22-9 before tries fromChloé Pelle and Alexandra Pertus finished the game.

The second semi-final ran to a similar pattern, with third-placed Blagnac-St Orens going into half-time 14-10 ahead against the more fancied Montpellier team, partly thanks to two first half yellow cards for Montpellier players, the first of which was also punished with a penalty try. However the second half was dominated by Elodie Poublan who scored two tries (both of which she converted) and a penalty that was just sufficient to see the defending champions into the final by 24-17.

The final will be played at Bourg-en-Bresse, and will be broadcast live on France4, kick-off 3pm CET (2pm BST).