Florian Verhaeghe

Football came first. Florian Verhaeghe played it at Lafrançaise until he was ten, picked up a rugby ball at Montauban, and has since won two French championships with two clubs and scored a try in one of the finals.

Lock at Montpellier, 2.03m and 110kg, and 29 years old.

Originally from the north of France, he moved south as a small child. The rugby stream at Lycée Jolimont in Toulouse picked him up, Stade Toulousain signed him the year after, and France used him all the way through the age grades. He captained the under-20s in 2017 and finished nineteen junior internationals with three tries.

His first professional contract was signed in January 2017, with a debut that May against Bayonne. The French Barbarians took him to New Zealand in 2018 to play the Crusaders and the Highlanders. A shoulder operation cost him two months of the 2018-19 season, at the end of which Toulouse were champions.

He left for Montpellier in 2020 and dislocated the other shoulder in August, which cost him months more. The reward came on 24 June 2022, when he started the Top 14 final alongside Bastien Chalureau and scored the second try inside ten minutes in a 29-10 win over Castres. He was named in the league’s team of the season.

A first cap arrived that November against Japan, on for Cameron Woki with five minutes left. He has five caps and one try, and was in the 42 named to prepare for the 2023 World Cup without making the final squad.

A lineout lock rather than a collision one, and the tallest man in the Montpellier pack by a centimetre.