Mickaël Ivaldi

Mickaël Ivaldi has won the Challenge Cup twice, in 2016 with Montpellier and in 2022 with Lyon, six years and two clubs apart. He then went back to where he started.

Hooker at Toulon, 1.82m and 108kg, and 36 years old.

La Seyne-sur-Mer is the town next door and the Toulon academy took him in 2008, the year he won a European under-18 title with France. He captained the France under-20 side.

His first spell in the senior squad began in 2010-11 and coincided with the strongest years the club has had. He played Top 14 and European Cup rugby in a side that reached French championship finals in 2012 and 2013 and lost both.

The shape of what followed is a hooker who arrives somewhere, wins something, and moves on again. Montpellier signed him in 2013 and gave him his first trophy, the Challenge Cup of 2016. Lyon took him that summer, extended him for three more years in 2018, and won a European trophy of their own with him in 2022. Stade Français had him for two seasons after that, which makes four clubs in a career spent entirely in the top division.

Then the return. He came back to the club that trained him at 34, having been away from it for eleven years.

The record is a useful corrective to the idea that hookers peak early. Two European trophies with two different clubs, four French employers, sixteen seasons of first-team rugby, and a squad place at 36.

A durable, technically sound hooker whose lineout throwing has outlasted most of the men he came through with.