Pau survived a string of Bordeaux-Begles comebacks to hang on to a 34-33 away win on Friday and open the weekend's round by climbing to the top of the Top 14.
Pau became the first team to win at Bordeaux in the league this season. They jumped ahead with a second minute try, but Bordeaux quickly levelled with the first of their five tries.
The lead changed hands three times before Pau turned around 23-19 at halftime and then stretched their lead to 10 points with 10 minutes to play
France fy half Matthieu Jalibert, who missed the Autumn International Series as he recovered from injury, made a sparkling return to a backline otherwise stripped of its France stars. He was at the heart of a late Bordeaux-Begles assault that yielded a 70th minute try.
Jalibert landed his fourth conversion to bring his team to within a point but could not then prise another gap in the Pau defence.
Cameron Woki, Gaetan Barlot, Marko Gazzotti, Romain Buros, Pablo Uberti touched down for the hosts
Lekso Kaulashvili, Gregoire Arfeuil and Facundo Isa scored Pau's three tries as Axel Desperes kicked 22 points to boot them top three points ahead of Toulouse, who visit struggling Montauban on Saturday.