Edouard-Junior Jabea Njocke

Edouard-Junior Jabea Njocke was on the bench for a French championship semi-final at nineteen, in his first professional season. He has also won the under-20 Six Nations twice, the second time with a Grand Slam.

Prop at Racing 92, 1.78m and 118kg, and 20 years old.

Born in Ivry-sur-Seine and raised in Aubervilliers, he played football first and took up rugby at eight with Sainte-Geneviève Sports. Massy spotted him at a district festival in 2016 and moved him up the age groups early, on a combination of size and speed that was not normal for a boy of that age.

School went alongside it, at the sports stream at Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux and then a business-studies year at Longjumeau. Racing took him into their academy in 2024.

France picked him for the under-20s almost at once. He played four of the five matches of the 2025 Six Nations, which France won, and had a notable game against Argentina at that summer’s junior world championship.

His Top 14 debut came against Bordeaux-Bègles in September 2025, off the bench, and a first start in the Challenge Cup at Ulster that December. He held a place in the rotation for the rest of the season, through the play-off and into the semi-final.

At 1.78m he is short even by the standards of the front row, which at scrum time is an advantage rather than a limitation, and at 118kg he already carries the weight to use it.

A tighthead prospect with two junior titles, a junior world final and a senior squad place before his twenty-first birthday.