Matéo Garcia

At 1.74m he is unusually small for a modern fly-half, and he signed for Toulon a full year before he was due to arrive.

Matéo Garcia is 1.74m tall. Professional fly-halves have been getting bigger for twenty years, on the reasoning that the position now has to defend a channel as well as run a game, and he is a long way under the current average.

Fly-half at Toulon, 83kg, and 24 years old.

He was born in July 2002 and spent the 2019-20 season with the Bayonne under-23s. Bordeaux-Bègles recruited him from there, first for their own under-23 side and then, from 2021-22, into the senior squad. His first start in the top division came in February 2022, at nineteen.

The France under-20 side used him at that June’s Six Nations Summer Series.

The move south was agreed a long way in advance. He signed a pre-contract with Toulon in October 2024 for the 2025-26 season, which is close to a year of playing for one club in the knowledge that you are leaving for another.

What he is walking into is the harder question. Bordeaux-Bègles had an established France fly-half ahead of him, and the Top 14 squad he has joined is not short of options in the position either. Three clubs in seven years, one senior start of any note, and a body that every recruiter in France has an opinion about.

The pre-contract is the part worth watching. A club does not agree terms a year early for a squad filler, and Toulon knew exactly how little senior rugby he had played when they did it.

A small, quick ten with good hands and a career that has not yet had its season.