Baptiste Heguy

Baptiste Heguy has been called into France squads twice. In March 2023 he was one of fourteen players brought in before the final round of the Six Nations, and he went back that June for a two-day camp before the World Cup list was drawn up. He was not picked either time. He is still uncapped.

He is a flanker at Bayonne, 1.96m and 104kg, born in the town, and he has never played for anybody else.

He comes from a rugby family; his father and his uncle both played. He joined the club in 2012 before going into its academy and the Pôle France in 2016-17. He won the Under-20 Six Nations with France in 2018, playing all five matches and scoring once.

His debut came at nineteen, off the bench in the last round of the 2017-18 Pro D2 season. The following year he scored twice in a 60-9 win over Soyaux Angoulême, took the No. 6 shirt in the second half of the season, and started the final as Bayonne won promotion.

The Top 14 was harder. Ten matches, four starts, then Covid. Then a first Top 14 try against Bordeaux-Bègles in a game he was injured in. Then relegation, a serious knee injury in November 2021 that cost him three months, and a return in time to start the final as Bayonne went up again.

Since then he has been a fixture: 21 matches in 2022-23 as the club reached the Champions Cup for the first time, 26 the following season, a first captaincy against Montpellier in February 2024, and a share of the club captaincy in 2024-25 with Arthur Iturria and Camille Lopez. A fractured ankle in January 2025 took three months out of it.

He started the historic draw at Munster in Bayonne’s first Champions Cup match. He is contracted to 2027.