Janse Roux

Janse Roux is at Lyon because Tomás Lavanini left. Brive signed him in 2025 and loaned him out immediately.

Second row, 2.00m and 122kg, South African, born on 28 August 1997.

He played for the Eastern Province Kings in 2017 and came to France that year, to CS Bourgoin-Jallieu in Fédérale 1. Twenty-two league matches over two seasons there.

Soyaux Angoulême took him to Pro D2 from 2019-20 on three years. He missed the entire 2020-21 season with a knee injury, and still stayed four seasons in total. Colomiers signed him in 2023 on two years.

He has won nothing in nine seasons.

At 2.00m and 122kg he is a genuine heavyweight lock, which is exactly what a club replacing Lavanini needs — Lavanini is 2.00m and comparably built, and Lyon lost a lot of set-piece weight when he went.

This is his first season in the Top 14, at 28, after nine years in the divisions below it. Cover signings of that profile either hold the shirt for a season or vanish, and there is not usually much in between.