Nathanaël Hulleu

Seventeen tries and the Pro D2 golden boot in 2023. His transfer to Bordeaux caused a public row about how he was approached.

Nathanaël Hulleu scored four tries in his first four starts for Grenoble at the beginning of the 2019-20 season. Lyon and Bordeaux-Bègles were both after him within weeks.

Note on his current club: Hulleu is still listed in Castres‘s squad data. He returned to RC Vannes in 2026 on a three-year deal.

Wing, 1.78m and 86kg, born in Carcassonne. His brother Wilfried also plays.

He started at RC Le Môle in Bonneville, then Faucigny Sallanches Mont-Blanc, and joined Grenoble at fifteen. He won the Crabos championship with them in 2018, beating Castres 20-13 in the final.

The move to Bordeaux caused a row. He was still under a development agreement with Grenoble, and their president Nicolas Cuynat said publicly that Hulleu had been approached during the 2020 Under-20 Six Nations without the club being told. He made his France Under-20 debut on 1 February 2020, at the Stade des Alpes, while still a Grenoble player.

Bordeaux did not use him much. A loan followed, and in 2023 he was Pro D2’s leading try-scorer with seventeen — the golden boot in a division he had been sent to in order to get any rugby at all.

Bordeaux did not renew him. Castres signed him from 2023-24. France named him in June 2024 for that summer’s Argentina tour, and he faced Uruguay in a match that did not count as a cap on 10 July. He is still uncapped.

A finisher whose scoring rate has been remarkable everywhere except the two Top 14 clubs that signed him for it.