Camille Chat

Camille Chat was capped by France and won a French championship in the same year, at twenty. Racing 92 released him at 29.

Hooker at Lyon, 1.78m and 101kg, born in Auxerre on 18 December 1995.

He came up through Toucy and Rugby Club Auxerrois, spent three seasons at ABCD XV and the Dijon pôle espoirs, and joined Racing’s youth sides in 2013 along with the Pôle France at Marcoussis. He won the Crabos title in 2014 and the espoirs championship in 2015, missing that final because he was at the junior world championship in New Zealand. He played five matches in the 2015 Under-20 Six Nations and five more at the world championship in Italy that summer.

Dimitri Szarzewski’s absence at the 2015 World Cup opened the senior door and he took it in his first professional season. France capped him in the 2016 Six Nations, on for the captain Guilhem Guirado against Ireland, and Racing won the Top 14 that June.

What followed was eight years of being third choice at the wrong moments. A biceps injury cost him the start of the 2017 Six Nations. Guy Novès preferred Clément Maynadier. Flu ruled him out of the opening of the 2018 tournament. He went to the 2019 World Cup as Guirado’s understudy, and in 2020 came back from a calf injury to win the late penalty that beat Wales.

He lost three European finals with Racing, in 2016, 2018 and 2020, and captained the club five times in the league.

In December 2024 Racing removed him and Janick Tarrit from the professional group for turning up to a training session drunk. On 7 January 2025 the club announced his immediate departure by mutual agreement. Lyon signed him five days later.

A mobile, aggressive hooker who was among the best in France at 22 and has spent much of the decade since being discussed in terms of what he might have been.