Alexandre Fischer

In April 2024, thirteen months after rupturing both cruciate ligaments in the same knee, Alexandre Fischer started a Challenge Cup last-sixteen tie against the Cheetahs and won three decisive turnovers in forty-seven minutes. Three weeks later he fractured his larynx.

That is the shape of his career. Flanker, 1.88m and 107kg, and he joined Bayonne from Clermont in 2025 on a three-year deal.

He was born in Chaumont and moved constantly as a child, following his father’s postings as a gendarme. He swam competitively for four years and played athletics and football before the family landed in Issoire and he started rugby at the local club, then Clermont’s academy.

Clermont were looking for a jackalling flanker in the summer of 2018 and trialling the Scotland international John Hardie. Fischer trained well enough through pre-season to get in ahead of him, and came on in the 64th minute of the opening round against Agen. He was on the bench for a European quarter-final by the end of that season, and then got hurt against Toulouse.

Fabien Galthié called him into his first France squad in January 2020. He left it injured after the opening win over England without playing, and did not play again that season.

What followed was worse: a first concussion in November 2020, two more between October 2021 and January 2022, a calf, a hamstring, then both cruciates in early 2023. Clermont extended him to 2025 in the middle of it and then declined the option year in December 2024.

His best Clermont season was 2020-21 — twenty matches, thirteen starts. His last was one of his best individual performances, eight tackles and three turnovers in a win at Montpellier.

A specialist breakdown forward who has never had two clean seasons in a row. If the body holds, Bayonne have a bargain.