Joe Marchant

Joe Marchant scored twice at the 2023 World Cup, against Japan and Fiji, and finished it with a bronze medal. He was 27, and moving to Paris that autumn ended his England career on the spot.

Centre at Stade Français, 1.83m and 89kg, and 30 years old.

Winchester gave him the game at six, and a black belt in karate on the side. He captained the rugby side at Peter Symonds College, joined the Harlequins academy in 2014, and spent 2014-15 on loan at Worthing in the fourth tier before a professional debut against Newcastle in May 2015.

Then the age-grade run: a Six Nations title with England Under-20 in 2015, and the Junior World Championship the following year, where he scored four tries including two in the final against Ireland.

By 2016-17 he was the Harlequins’ first-choice outside centre, starting twenty-four of twenty-five and scoring ten. A sabbatical clause took him to the Blues for six rounds of Super Rugby in early 2020 before Covid ended it. Back in England he was part of the 2021 title side, scoring nine that season, two of them in a semi-final the Quins won 43-36 against Bristol after trailing by twenty-eight points.

England capped him against Wales on 11 August 2019, off the bench for Jonathan Joseph, and left him out of that year’s World Cup squad. He was on the bench for the 2020 Autumn Nations Cup final without coming on. Steve Borthwick started him against Scotland in the 2023 Six Nations, dropped him for three rounds and recalled him for the last.

The Top 14 deal was agreed in December 2022, well before the tournament that made his case. Twenty-six caps, four tries, seventeen of them starts, and no route back while he plays in France.

He debuted for Paris against Lyon in November 2023 and went a full first season without a try. The second was better: twenty-six matches, twenty-three starts, six tries. He was reported as leaving in the summer of 2025 with a year to run, and stayed.