Alexis Bernadet

At twenty he was an engineering student playing fourth-tier rugby in Toulouse. Five years later he was in a Top 14 final squad.

Alexis Bernadet was twenty years old, studying engineering at INSA Toulouse and playing Fédérale 1 for the Avenir Castanéen. Nothing about that season suggested a professional career. Five years later he was part of a squad that reached a French championship final.

Scrum-half at Montpellier, 1.80m and 79kg, and 25 years old.

Pouillon is where he is from, and June 2001 is when he was born. The clubs came in sequence rather than in a plan: Hers Lauragais at five, Villefranche at eleven, then Paris Université Club when his father was posted to the capital, then the sport-study stream at Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux and the Stade Français academy. He went back south in 2019 for his engineering degree, which is how he ended up in the fourth tier.

Montauban took him in 2021. He sat on a Pro D2 bench for a full year without getting on, played for the France universities side against England at Newcastle, and made his first appearance at Provence in October 2022. Injuries to the men above him did the rest. That season he was on twenty match sheets and started ten games, which earned a professional contract to 2026.

The second season was the one that moved him. Nine starts in the first thirteen rounds and two tries brought him the Midi Olympique young player award in December, and Montpellier signed a pre-contract with him before the winter was out. A torn calf cost him the last two rounds and the relegation play-off.

His Top 14 debut came in round two of 2024-25, on for Léo Coly in a win at Perpignan. A first start followed the next week at Bayonne, where he scored and lost 27-26. A shoulder injury in a Challenge Cup tie at Newcastle in January 2025 ended the run.

A quick, light nine in a squad that has usually preferred size at the base. What he has to prove is that he can hold the position over a season rather than in bursts.