Montpellier treating Racing clash as knock-out prep

Should the visitors to Racing's Yves du Manoir stadium just outside Paris avoid defeat, they will secure a bye to the end-of-season play-off semifinals.

Three teams are vying for second place, with Montpellier four points ahead of Racing 92 and 2014 champions Toulon - leaders Clermont have already booked their trip straight into the semi-inals while the teams finishing third to sixth must play a quarterfinal round.

Should Racing and Toulon, who host Bordeaux-Begles, both win on Sunday, the permutations for who finishes second would become quite complicated as head-to-head records would likely come into play.

But Montpellier have no intention of relying on that.

"We're not calculating anything, we need to continue playing well to be ready for the play-offs," said Watremez, capped once by France.

Boosted by a strong South African contingent, Montpellier have won 13 of their last 14 matches in all competitions and won the European Challenge Cup - the first trophy in their history - last month.

Beaten European Champions Cup finalists Racing have been inconsistent over the last three months since a chastening 7-60 humiliation at Montpellier in mid-March.

Like their visitors, Racing are merely concentrating on winning this match, according to flank Yannick Nyanga.

"Semifinals, quarterfinal at home or away, knock-out match against Toulouse or Bordeaux-Begles... every scenario is possible," he said, referring to the possibility that Racing could finish the regular season anywhere between second and fifth.

"There are so many [scenarios] that there's no point thinking about it. We'll concentrate on playing well against Montpellier, and when the match ends we'll see which opponents we have [in the play-offs] and we'll either celebrate or not."

Agence France-Presse