Agen

Stade Toulousain has always been the measure Agen sets itself against. It is a rivalry built on the river connecting the two towns and on decades when Agen could genuinely stand across from Toulouse in a final rather than look up at it.

That standing came from a period of success that is hard to square with where the club sits now: eight French Championship titles between 1930 and 1988, a Coupe de France won twice in the 1940s, four Challenge Yves du Manoir trophies.

Relegation from the Top 14 came in 2007, a Pro D2 title brought Agen back up in 2010, and the cycle repeated itself: promotion through the playoffs in 2015 and again in 2017, then relegation in 2021 after a season in which the club lost every one of its twenty regular-season matches. Philippe Sella and Abdelatif Benazzi both came through Agen before becoming names known well beyond Lot-et-Garonne, a reminder of what the club once produced as well as won. Agen goes into the 2026–27 season back in Pro D2, still known simply as Les Agenais, still measuring itself against the club across the Garonne it first faced when Sporting Club agenais and Union sportive agenaise merged in 1908.