Liam Allen

Lyon brought Liam Allen over in the winter of 2023 as a medical joker, to cover injuries to Jordan Taufua and Maxime Gouzou. Short-term cover signings usually leave in the spring. He is still at the club.

Back-row forward at Lyon, 1.91m and 105kg, born on 17 March 2000. He grew up on a farm in a small village near Waikato and is Sam Cane’s brother-in-law, Cane being married to his sister Hariett.

He went to Lincoln University and played for Canterbury in the NPC from 2020. His professional debut came on 30 October 2020, on for Billy Harmon with three minutes left against Otago, and his first start on 8 August 2021 against Auckland. The Crusaders used him once, on 29 May 2021 at the Waratahs, with five minutes to go.

His first match for Lyon came on 1 April 2023 against Stade Français in the Challenge Cup. He scored his first try on the last day of that Top 14 season, against Bayonne, and played well enough to be kept on as a World Cup joker rather than sent home.

On 2 December 2023, against Castres, he ruptured the medial ligament in his left knee and lost a month.

Lyon reached the Challenge Cup final in 2025 and were beaten, with Allen in the squad.

A New Zealand provincial forward who took the France route at 23 rather than waiting for a Super Rugby contract that might never have come. It is a common calculation now, and turning a six-week cover deal into a career is the version of it that works.