Loïc Credoz

Loïc Crédoz spent four seasons in the French second division and reached the play-offs in all of them. Three ended in semi-final defeat. The fourth, in 2023, ended with a title and promotion, and he started the final.

Flanker or No 8 at Pau, 1.89m and 108kg, and 27 years old.

Born in Annecy and raised at Montrevel-en-Bresse in the Ain, he started at the local club in 2007 and joined the Oyonnax academy at fifteen. His professional debut, in August 2019, went about as well as a debut can: on at half-time for Rory Grice and a try twenty minutes later.

The next four years were unusually consistent for a young back-rower. Thirteen matches and five tries in the first season, then twenty-six, twenty-five and twenty-four, and a place in the side for every knockout match the club played.

His first Top 14 match came against Clermont in August 2023, starting, and he scored in it. Three months later he played his hundredth match for the club.

The Béarn came calling in 2024 on two seasons, and he arrived into a back row that injuries had emptied, which meant immediate rugby rather than a season of adaptation.

The promotion itself is worth the detail. Oyonnax beat Vannes in the semi-final and Grenoble in the final, and Crédoz started both, having been a replacement for the equivalent matches in each of the two seasons before. It took him three attempts to be trusted with the games that decided a season.

A hard-working flanker with a promotion medal and a hundred matches behind him at 25, and a first proper run in the top division still in front of him.