Mickaël Capelli

Mickaël Capelli came on for Bastien Chalureau in the 2022 French championship final and won it, the first title of his career. Two seasons later he spent four months out of the game with repeated concussions.

He locks the scrum for Pau, is 1.99m and 129kg, and is 29.

He is from Échirolles in the Isère and came up through Voreppe, Chartreuse Néron and Voiron before the Grenoble academy took him in 2012. His first professional match came on the last day of the 2015-16 season, against Stade Toulousain, and his first start against the same club four months later.

The Grenoble years were interrupted repeatedly. A disc hernia in 2017 cost him half a season, a medial knee ligament rupture on the opening weekend of 2018-19 cost him three months, and another injury that April cost him the end of it. A promotion final Grenoble lost saw him on the bench, and he started the play-off they won.

Montpellier signed him in 2020. A foot injury limited his first season to eight matches and he was a replacement throughout the second, which ended with the medal.

The Béarn took him in 2022 on three years, and he lost most of his first season there, from January to late May, to the concussions. When fit he has been a first-choice lock: nine of the first twelve matches of 2023-24, seven of them starts, and a first try for the club against Stade Français.

A heavy, physical second row whose Top 14 record is a list of what he has played through as much as what he has won.