Irakli Aptsiauri

Irakli Aptsiauri started two Pro D2 finals and two promotion play-offs for Grenoble before he was 22. Grenoble lost all four. The last went 18-20 with three minutes remaining, and it was his final match for the club that raised him.

Prop at Lyon, 1.85m and 122kg, born in Tbilisi on 23 February 2003.

He came to France in 2021 from Lelo Saracens, into the Grenoble academy, played his first professional match in February 2022 at eighteen and signed an academy contract a month later.

Grenoble finished second in 2022-23 and he started the final, lost 14-3 to Oyonnax, then started the play-off defeat to Perpignan that June. The following season they were beaten 16-9 by Vannes in the final and lost the play-off to Montpellier.

He played the 2023 Junior World Championship in South Africa alongside his Grenoble teammates Giorgi Mamaiashvili and Guram Ganiashvili. On 26 September that year Georgia called him to the World Cup as a replacement for Luka Japaridze, and he won his first two caps there, against Fiji and Wales.

He has won the European Championship in 2024 and 2025 and lost the 2026 final. He was the man Giorgi Dzmanashvili replaced on his own international debut against Japan.

Lyon took him in 2024 on four years, at 21, which is a long commitment to a tighthead who had never played top-flight rugby. A fifth senior final followed in the 2025 Challenge Cup, and a fifth defeat.

A very heavy tighthead who has played more knockout rugby at 23 than most props manage in a career, and has yet to win any of it.