Alfred Parisien

On 9 December 2023 Alfred Parisien scored against Bristol in the Champions Cup, late in the match and off his own work. He had been at the club five years. He started most weeks afterwards.

Centre at Lyon, 1.82m and 91kg, born in Périgueux on 4 March 2001.

CA Périgueux, his home-town club, trained him. He went to the pôle espoirs at Talence while attached to Agen, and joined Lyon at seventeen.

His professional debut came on 13 February 2021, away at Racing 92. The first European appearance followed on 17 December that year against the Dragons in the Challenge Cup, and he scored his first senior try in it.

Two years then passed without the shirt becoming his.

The Bristol try changed that. At the end of 2023-24, his first full professional season, Lyon extended him to 2026. He had been out of contract and other clubs had been asking, which is the part that tells you what the season was worth.

France Under-20s selected him for the 2021 Six Nations and he played four matches, two of them starts, beginning against England on 19 June. The French Barbarians picked him against Fiji on 19 November 2022.

Five years between arriving at a club and holding a place in its team is a long apprenticeship, particularly at centre, where clubs usually buy the finished article rather than wait for one. Lyon waited, then paid to keep him. He is 25 and the contract runs out next summer, so the same question is about to be asked again.