Anthime Hemery

Three penalties conceded in his first start for Clermont, and a 41-7 beating at Bordeaux-Bègles to go with them. Anthime Hemery’s introduction to his new club could hardly have gone worse.

He is a back-rower, comfortable at No. 8 or on the flank, and at 1.89m and 110kg he is built for the collision rather than the chase. Clermont took him from Racing 92 in 2024.

He was born in Sainte-Catherine, in the Pas-de-Calais, and picked the game up in 2006 at the Ovale du Gy in Duisans. He kept his licence there until he was 15, long after he had started playing at Arras. Racing brought him into their youth sides in 2016 and then their academy, by way of the CREPS at Brétigny-sur-Orge and the Pôle Espoirs at Lycée Lakanal.

2021-22 was the season it opened up. A Top 14 debut off the bench against Clermont, a first start at blindside three rounds later when injuries thinned the Racing pack, then a first professional try against Brive in the last seconds that salvaged a losing bonus point. Seventeen appearances, ten of them starts, two tries. The French Barbarians picked him that June for a match against the United States in Houston.

Then it closed again. Stuart Lancaster arrived, Siya Kolisi signed, Jordan Joseph came back from loan, and Hemery played eight games in 2023-24 without starting any of them. He left in April 2024, before his contract was up, joining Clermont early as a medical joker for Pierre Fouyssac.

The rebuild has been quiet. He scored his first Clermont try in a 52-15 win over Montpellier in the final round of that season. 2024-25 brought 19 appearances, three of them starts, and tries against Castres and Pau. A muscle injury against Benetton in the Champions Cup interrupted the middle of it.

He has won nothing yet. No senior international honours either.

At 25 he is still a finisher rather than a starter, and the queue at Clermont has not got any shorter with Marcos Kremer in the same part of the field. Discipline is what decides it. Three penalties in a first start is the kind of afternoon that keeps a man on the bench, and he knows it better than anyone.