Champions Cup: Bath loses decisively to Montpellier

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Champions Cup: Bath loses decisively to Montpellier.

Bath suffered a clear 14:32 home defeat against Montpellier on Saturday, 17 October, in their opening game of the new Champions Cup season. The French club decided the match single-handedly after the break – and used the first matchday of the 2026/27 edition to claim an away win that carries serious weight in the pool stage.

The first half had looked reasonably decent for Bath. At 14:10 for Montpellier, the teams went into the dressing room, with the English side still within striking distance. After the turnaround, the contest completely flipped: Montpellier scored in a run of 22 points without the hosts countering even once. What after 40 minutes had looked like an evenly matched duel became a one-sided second half. The final score of 14:32 clearly reflected that break.

Bath were not there as underdogs

What makes the defeat particularly painful for Bath: the club from the west of England had reached the semi-finals of the European top flight the previous year. Anyone who gets that far automatically belongs to the circle of title contenders – even if the new competition starts from scratch again. Accordingly, the home defeat against Montpellier does not fall into the category of "surprising", but rather into the category of "not planned like this". For the first-round standings this means: Bath starts with zero points, Montpellier travels back to southern France with five points in their luggage.

French evening with a mixed record

On the same Saturday evening, the second French club was also called upon – and they had the worse evening. Racing 92 lost 25:33 at Munster, even though the Parisian suburban side had, according to Ouest-France, delivered an appealing performance. An eight-point margin in an away game in Ireland sounds like more than the run of play warranted – "jolie performance" and still lost, that is the crux. While Montpellier sends a signal to the competition with the away win against last year's semi-finalist, Racing stands empty-handed on the very first matchday. Two French clubs, same matchday, completely different outlooks.

What this means for the rest of the campaign

The 2026/27 Champions Cup season has only just begun – an opening defeat is no verdict on the rest of the campaign, especially not in a competition where four points per win and table positions one to eight decide qualification at the end. For Bath this means concretely: points must come in the upcoming games, otherwise the quarter-finals will quickly slip out of reach. Montpellier can take confidence from the away coup – the club from the Hérault has delivered, on the first matchday, exactly the result that coaches and fans had hoped for. Whether the run continues will be shown in the coming rounds. One thing is clear: anyone who beats last year's semi-finalist away by 18 points has shown the competition that it has to be reckoned with in this edition.