Ibrahim Diallo

Ibrahim Diallo started for France in Australia on 13 July 2021, at 23. He is from Sarcelles, in the northern suburbs of Paris, where he took up rugby at school having played football first. Very few internationals come out of that part of the country.

Back row at Racing 92, 1.92m and 108kg, and 28 years old.

The local club had him from the age of about eleven and Racing took him into their academy in 2013, at fifteen. He has never played for another club.

The junior side of 2018 is the one that made his generation. He won the under-20 Six Nations and the junior world championship with it, alongside Hassane Kolingar, who is still his teammate, and Demba Bamba, who now is again.

His first Top 14 match came against Bordeaux-Bègles in December 2018, and he worked his way into the rotation over the following two seasons. The performance that changed things came at Bordeaux on 5 December 2020, against a side widely expected to win the title, in a Racing win.

France used him repeatedly through 2021 and 2022, including against Japan on that summer’s tour, and named him in the 32 for the 2024 tour of Argentina. He also played the uncapped match against Uruguay for the France development side in July 2024.

What has kept him out is the depth France carry in the back row rather than anything about his own form. Three of the four positions he can fill have been occupied by established internationals for most of his career, and the fourth by Charles Ollivon.

A tall, mobile back-rower who has spent his whole career at one club and most of it on the edge of the France squad rather than inside it.