Fabien Sanconnie

He scored two tries in six minutes at Bath in a European quarter-final, and reinvented himself as a lock at twenty-seven.

Fabien Sanconnie scored two tries in six minutes at Bath in a Challenge Cup quarter-final. Brive lost 34-20 anyway, and Taulupe Faletau and Semesa Rokoduguni both scored doubles of their own in the same match, which is the kind of afternoon that makes a career and settles nothing.

Lock at Racing 92, 1.95m and 114kg, and 31 years old.

Larche in the Corrèze is where he started and Brive took him at under-15. The federal centre at Ussel carried him through the France age-grade sides and onto the 30-man development list in July 2016.

The promotion came quickly. On 10 March 2017 he started against Italy in Rome, in the absence of Damien Chouly and Charles Ollivon, the third player from that development list to be called up to the senior squad.

Brive were relegated in 2018 and he moved to the capital. That June he played the first Test of France’s tour of New Zealand and then joined the French Barbarians for their last week, starting at No 8 against the Highlanders at Invercargill.

What has kept him in a Top 14 squad into his thirties is a change of position. From 2022-23, with Veikoso Poloniati, Bernard Le Roux and Anton Bresler all unavailable, he was moved to the second row. He took the shirt, kept it, and extended his contract on the strength of it.

The move is rarer than it sounds. Back-rowers who fill in at lock usually do it for a month and go back; he was 27, had spent a decade as a flanker and a No 8, and has now played more rugby in the second row than most specialists his age.

A European Cup finalist in 2020, and a back-rower who has made himself a lock rather than let the position choose him.