Lucas Peyresblanques

In December 2012, at Port-de-Lanne, Lucas Peyresblanques won the French Espoirs championship in paleta gomme, played in a trinquet, partnered by Antoine Courpon. He was fourteen. Rugby came after that, and it was not the obvious choice at the time.

Hooker at Stade Français, 1.81m and 96kg, and 28 years old.

He was born in Bayonne and went to Biarritz Olympique when he committed to the fifteen-a-side game, by way of the Bayonne pôle espoirs. The first-team debut came at Carcassonne in August 2017, at nineteen.

France used him at under-18 and then at under-20 for the 2018 Six Nations, where he played every match of the tournament. That is a full campaign at nine, and it is the highest level he has reached in a national shirt.

Biarritz extended him to 2023 in May 2020, in the middle of the season Covid interrupted, and he was still under that deal in April 2022 when Paris bought it out and signed him for three years. Mathieu Hirigoyen came in the same transaction, which is unusual: clubs rarely take two forwards out of one squad at once, and rarer still when one of them is a hooker and the other a lock.

At 96kg he is on the light side for the position in this division, which puts the weight of his case on the throw and the work rate rather than on the scrum.

A career built at three Basque and Béarn institutions before a move to the capital at twenty-four, and no gaps in it anywhere.