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The Top 14 season gets underway this weekend with several clubs looking to highly-paid English invaders to boost their chances of succeeding Perpignan as champions.

A frantic close season saw an avalanche of big-name transfers from English clubs, including fly-half Jonny Wilkinson at ambitious Toulon, and international centres Riki Flutey and Jamie Noon (pictured) who opted for Brive.

Iain Balshaw and Ayoola Erinie moved to Biarritz, while England forwards James Haskell and Tom Palmer joined Stade Francais.

The English were not the only ones in demand by big-spending French clubs.

Springboks star Francois Steyn has signed for newly-promoted Racing-Metro, Scotland full-back Hugo Southwell headed for Stade Francais, while Argentine Juan Martin Fernandez-Lobbe and Felipe Contepomi will display their talents at Toulon, where Philippe Saint-Andre has taken over as coach after years at Sale.

On top of that, the new season will see the return of several top bracket French players, such as the hugely popular powerhouse Sebastien Chabal, who moves to Racing-Metro alongside national skipper Lionel Nallet.

Julian Dupuy and Benjamin Kayser have both joined Stade Francais from Leicester and Sebastian Bruno has moved with Saint-Andre from Sale to Toulon.

The impact of all that transfer activity once the new season opens is up for debate, but at the very least it will certainly spark crowd interest and introduce an element of uncertainty into a league that had become all too predictable.

Last season's big four of Perpignan, Stade Francais, Toulouse and Clermont will once again be the favourites to reach the play-offs even though they have followed different paths in the close season.

While Stade Francais indulged in a transfer binge, Perpignan opted to stick with last year's winning formula while Toulouse and Clermont have both brought in fresh faces from lesser French clubs.

Toulouse in particular will be looking to bring back the glory days that brought them French and European titles in recent years.

Long-time coach Guy Noves, who was bitterly disappointed when his side lost to Clermont in last season's league semi-finals, said that it was all about confidence building and team management.

"It's going to be a high quality championship, that's for sure," he said.

"On top of that we once again will have to deal with international calls on our players. That's tough.

"It will be no different this year for all the teams have brought in international reinforcements. We will just have to take it match by match."

Over at Biarritz, champions in 2003, 2005 and 2006 but outside the top four last year, club president and full-back legend Serge Blanco said that new players had been brought in to re-galvanise the Basque side.

"In my mind we are starting from scratch," he said. "It feels just like 10 years ago when I first took over the presidency.

"In that time we won three league titles and reached the final of the European Cup. Now we have a new project and we are building it around new men."

The teams most likely to challenge last year's semi-finalists and Biarritz for the top honours are likely to be Toulon and Racing-Metro, as well as Brive who last won the title in 1996.

Top-14 Round 1

Friday

Toulon v Stade Francais

Saturday

Biarritz v Castres

Bourgoin v Clermont

Montauban v Toulouse

Brive v Montpellier

Perpignan v Bayonne

Albi v Racing

AFP