Bayonne’s home lean is provisional because the full current home selection is unverified and the form samples come from different competitions. Their recent wins over Clermont, Racing and Paris show an attack capable of competing, but conceding 70 at Pau and 45 at Toulouse is the obvious warning. No cross-league form superiority is awarded merely for being a Top 14 club.

The Cheetahs have confirmed de Klerk and Swanepoel in the halves, with Wegner and Sekekete at lock and Els debuting at eight. Davis and Jasper are among the replacements. Their last competitive score in the retrieved sample is the 24–27 Currie Cup semi-final defeat, so the long gap is a freshness limitation, not an assumed rest advantage. Scorecard net +2; raw house home probability 69.1%, raw home margin 4.70. The 1–10-point band is an editorial range, not a statistical confidence interval. Combined-total prior from 10 distinct completed matches in the two explicit form windows, 2026-08-09 to 2026-10-11: median 68.5 points. The projected 69 adjusts only for integer score parity with the rounded 5-point margin. Cross-competition and selection changes limit transfer; no unsupported weather adjustment.