Clément Laporte

Clément Laporte ruptured his Achilles tendon four minutes into a match at Jean-Dauger in 2023. Pau and Bayonne were joint top of the table at the time. He was operated on and did not play again that season.

Wing or full-back at Pau, 1.80m and 83kg, and 28 years old.

Born in Pessac, he started at Parentis in 2006, went through the Bordeaux-Bègles academy from 2013 and the Agen one from 2015. Agen gave him a first league start against Stade Toulousain in September 2017 and he scored against Bordeaux six weeks later. His twin brother Lucas plays at Marmande.

The 2018 junior side is the best line on his record. He won the under-20 Six Nations and the junior world championship with it, and the French Barbarians picked him that November against Tonga, where he started on the wing and scored.

Lyon signed him for 2019-20 and it did not work at all. Injuries held him to twenty-two league matches across three seasons, one of them in the whole of the first.

Pau took him in 2022 and he played twenty league matches with six tries in his first season, having lost six weeks to a knee ligament sprain in December. He had established himself on the wing and as an alternative at fifteen when the Achilles went.

Fabien Galthié named him in the France squad in December 2020, ahead of the Autumn Nations Cup final. He was injured and had to leave the camp, and has not been called again.

He extended to 2027 in May 2024, while recovering. A quick, two-position back whose Top 14 career has been interrupted about as often as it has been allowed to run.