Gauthier Maravat

Gauthier Maravat won the Under-20 World Championship with France in 2019, alongside Alex Burin and Loïc Hocquet, who were his clubmates at the time. It remains the only trophy on his record.

Second row and back-row forward at Castres, 1.98m and 112kg, born in Agen on 11 June 2000.

France kept him in the age-grade system after that title: in January 2020 he was one of 34 players named for the Under-20 Six Nations. He was studying for a diploma in industrial logistics at the same time.

Burin and Hocquet were in that France side with him and the three came up together, which is worth noting because none of them has yet turned a junior world title into a senior international career.

Castres signed him in 2022, the summer after they had been beaten in the Top 14 final.

Beyond that the published record is short, and stretching it would mean making things up. His youth clubs, his professional debut and his appearance totals are all unrecorded, in every language searched.

What the measurements say is clear enough. At 1.98m he is the fifth-tallest player in the squad, behind Guillaume Ducat, Romain Macurdy, Paul Jedrasiak and Leone Nakarawa, and at 112kg he is built to jump rather than to scrummage. A forward who covers both second and back row is a bench asset in a league that names six forwards among eight replacements.

He is 26. A junior world champion who is still without a senior honour at that age is usually a squad player, and the honest reading of the record here is that this is one.