Guillaume Ducat

In February 2019 Guillaume Ducat ruptured the cruciate ligaments in his right knee and lost nine months. In October 2021 he ruptured the cruciates in his left and lost the rest of that season.

Second row at Castres, 2.05m and 115kg, born in Tarbes on 25 May 1996. He is the tallest player at the club.

He started at seven with Tarbes and stayed until his first espoirs year, then joined the Bayonne academy in 2015, taking in the federal espoirs centre there and the Pôle France at Marcoussis.

Bayonne gave him a first professional match in May 2016 against Béziers. The following season brought five Top 14 appearances and a full Challenge Cup campaign, and 2018-19 brought seventeen matches in Pro D2 before the first knee went. Bayonne went up as Pro D2 champions that year without him for the run-in.

He came back on 9 November 2019 against Pau, played ten matches before the pandemic ended the season, and nineteen the year after, which finished with Bayonne relegated on a penalty shootout against Biarritz.

Pau signed him on three years in June 2021. The second knee went four months later, against Toulouse. He returned on 3 September 2022 and played seventeen league matches that season.

France first called him in February 2020, to replace the injured Cyril Cazeaux in the Six Nations squad, and he did not play. The cap came that autumn, in the Autumn Nations Cup final against England at Twickenham, on for Baptiste Pesenti in the second half. France lost 22-19 after extra time. It remains his only cap.

A genuine 2.05m lineout target who has lost the better part of two seasons to his knees and keeps coming back.