Kylan Hamdaoui

Fabien Galthié called Kylan Hamdaoui into his first France squad in early 2020. Before the Six Nations began he was concussed playing for Stade Français and had to leave the camp. He came back into the group after the win over England. He has still never been capped.

Hamdaoui plays full-back or wing for Clermont, stands 1.82m and weighs 91kg. He is French-Algerian, born in Paris, and grew up in Meaux until he was seven.

He played football first, and only picked up rugby at eleven, at La Rochelle. From there to the pôle espoirs at Talence, and in 2012 into the Clermont academy, where he won the espoirs championship in 2014.

Clermont did not keep him. Biarritz gave him his professional debut in 2014 and he stayed four seasons, scoring 26 tries, reaching a semi-final in 2017 and a play-off in 2018. Stade Français signed him in November 2017 on three years from 2018-19 and extended him in September 2020.

In June 2024 Clermont brought him back, on three years, to the club that had let him go a decade earlier.

France have circled him repeatedly without ever finishing the job. He was at the Pôle France at Marcoussis in 2012-13 in the same intake as Yacouba Camara and Baptiste Serin. He played sevens for France at the 2013 World Games in Cali. He won a Grand Slam with the Under-20s in the 2014 Six Nations. He was on the senior coaches’ thirty-man development list in July 2016, played for the Baby Barbarians against Georgia in Tbilisi in May 2018, and started at full-back for the French Barbarians against Tonga in Bordeaux that November.

What he offers is a back-field player who is comfortable under a high ball and quick enough to be used on the wing when needed. At 32, the international door is shut and the job now is simply to be the man Clermont trust at 15.