Baptiste Delaporte

Born in Martinique to a mother from Castres, he was back in the Tarn at three and playing for the town at six.

Baptiste Delaporte was born in Martinique, to a soldier father and a mother from Castres. The family came back to the Tarn when he was three. He has played for one club since he was fourteen and is contracted to it until 2027.

Flanker at Castres, 1.90m and 110kg, born on 25 March 1997.

He started at six at Labruguière and went through the whole rugby school there, then a single year at Sor Agout XV, the club formed by the villages of Saix and Soual, before Castres recruited him. Baptiste Cope, now in the same back row, came out of the same village club.

He captained nearly every side he played in from cadet level up. In 2017 he led the Castres espoirs to the French final against Perpignan at Béziers, and lost it.

He was a French champion with the senior side the following year and a losing finalist in 2022.

On 4 February 2020 France named him in the extended squad preparing for the Italy match in the Six Nations. He did not play, and has not been called again.

In December 2023 he signed three more years, which will take him to a decade in the first-team squad at the club that raised him.

A 110kg blindside who has never played for anyone else and has captained at every level below the first team. That combination usually produces either a club captain or a career squad man, and at 29 it is still genuinely unclear which one this is.