Antoine Frisch

Released by Stade Français without ever making a match sheet, he was in the third division at 22 and a France international at 28.

Antoine Frisch left Stade Français without once appearing on a first-team match sheet. At 22 he was playing third-division rugby at Tarbes. At 28 he started a Test for France and scored.

Centre at Toulon, 1.88m and 99kg, and 30 years old.

Born in Fontainebleau, he came up through Rugby Sud 77, the Paris Université Club, Massy and then the Paris academy, where the queue at fly-half was too long. Tarbes moved him to inside centre in 2018, which is the decision the rest of the career rests on. Seventeen matches and seven tries followed, then a season back at Massy, then a first year of second-division rugby at Rouen.

England was always available to him. His mother is from Devon and he had studied at Loughborough in 2015, so Bristol was less of a leap than it looked. He played thirteen matches in 2021-22 before a shoulder injury at Gloucester cost him a France call-up that Fabien Galthié had been preparing.

Munster took him that summer, and a Dublin-born grandmother made him eligible for Emerging Ireland as well. In May 2023 he started the United Rugby Championship final at centre alongside Malakai Fekitoa and beat the Stormers 19-14, the province’s first title since 2011.

France capped him in Argentina in July 2024. He started with Émilien Gailleton, scored just after half-time, and won 28-13. He has two caps.

Toulon announced him from Munster in May 2024 on three seasons, bringing him back to the Top 14 at 28 having never played in it.

A defensively hard twelve who reads a game rather than runs over it, and the best argument in French rugby for looking below the second division.