Summary Clermont had taken temporary control at the top of the table in France.
PARIS (AFP) - Reigning European and French champions Toulon, with a batch of internationals away on Six Nations duty, regained the Top 14 summit on Saturday with a 22-14 win at strugglers Lyon.
Clermont had taken temporary control at the top of the table in France on the strength of a 31-23 win over Bordeaux-Begles 24 hours earlier.
First half tries from David Smith, Delon Armitage and Drew Mitchell, with Argentine fly-half Nicolas Sanchez contributing two conversions and a penalty, proved Lyon s undoing.
This was the fourth straight win on the road for Bernard Laporte s team but it started badly when their hosts took an early lead through former South Africa scum-half Ricky Januarie s six minute try, with Stephen Brett adding three second-half penalties.
It also came at a price with six players leaving the pitch due to injury.
"We were missing ten players, and others were injured quickly," Laporte pointed out.
"After a cautious opening quarter of an hour we played well for 25 minutes. The second half when we didn t score was tougher.
"But I d warned the players this wasn t going to be easy, There are no small teams in the championship."
Toulon s players wore black armbands and there was a minute s applause before kick-off in honour of French Olympic swimmer Camille Muffat, one of the ten victims of this week s helicopter crash in Argentina who was born in Nice.
Earlier, an opportunistic brace of tries from veteran France winger Vincent Clerc helped Toulouse to an 18-13 victory over Montpellier.
With just six matches remaining to cement a place in the top six teams who advance to play-offs, every match has become a must-win in the highly competitive French league with but a few points separating five teams in mid-table.
The victory moved Toulouse up into fifth spot on 49 points, while Montpellier came away with a bonus defensive point.
It was the fourth time this season these two teams had met, having been drawn together in the same European Champions Cup pool, and Toulouse s win drew it level at 2-2.
Montpellier, with Francois Trinh-Duc making his return as a replacement after a five-month injury lay-off, took an early lead through Benoit Paillaugue and Ben Lucas penalties, Luke McAlister hitting back with two of his own just before half-time.
But it was Toulouse replacement Vincent Clerc who proved the difference.
First Montpellier winger Rene Ranger, who will return to the Auckland Blues in a bid to get back into the All Blacks squad, made a hash of clearing a kick, the ball bobbling away over the line and out of the Kiwi s reach but into Clerc s.
Ranger s nightmare continued just minutes later when he fumbled a McAlister up-and-under behind the tryline, Clerc again on hand to pounce on the loose ball, McAlister kicking the extras.
Ranger went some way to regaining his game-breaking kudos with a fine break and one-handed offload to Fijian full-back Timoci Nagusa for the try, converted by Lucas to make for a nerve-racking final 10 minutes.
Grenoble moved into the sixth spot with an emphatic 30-21 win away at third-placed Stade Francais as just nine points separated eight clubs from Toulouse in fifth to La Rochelle in 12th.
Oyonnax s hopes were hit with a 35-20 defeat by La Rochelle while Brive moved out of the relegation zone with a stunning 36-12 victory over fourth-placed Racing-Metro.
Bottom-placed Castres suffered a 21-19 defeat by Bayonne thanks to an injury-time 45-metre penalty by Argentine Martin Bustos Moyano.
