Cheikh Tiberghien

Cheikh Tiberghien did not play rugby until he was sixteen. Until then he was a footballer, at Anglet and then in Real Sociedad’s academy. Four years after switching he was making his Top 14 debut.

He covers the whole back three and can play centre for Bayonne, and is 1.86m and 96kg.

He was born in Bayonne and started at the club, and the FFR moved fast once he committed: a place in the Pôle France group for 2019-20, and a silver medal with the France Under-18s at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games.

Clermont took him into their academy in 2019 and gave him his first professional minutes in February 2020, away at Pau. He spent four seasons there without ever nailing down a shirt, and at the end of 2022-23 Christophe Urios decided not to keep him.

Four years is a long apprenticeship for a player who converted from another sport at sixteen, and Clermont were never short of back-three options while he was there. He left with a Top 14 debut and not much else.

So he went home. Bayonne signed him on three years and he started the opening round of 2023-24 against Toulouse. In October 2025 he re-signed for two more.

A footballer’s balance in a back three, which is not a cliché in his case but a literal description of where he learnt to move. What he has never had is a settled position. Being moved between 15, the wing and the midfield inside one season is useful to a coach and hard on a player trying to own a shirt.

At 26, with Sireli Maqala and Mateo Carreras ahead of him in the wide channels, the 15 shirt is the one worth fighting for.