Pascal Cotet

Pascal Cotet was playing Fédérale 1 for Aubenas at 24 — the third tier, in the Ardèche, at the club nearest to where he grew up. He reached the Top 14 five years later and held a starting shirt in it.

Note on his current club: Cotet is still listed in Bayonne‘s squad data. He joined Provence Rugby in 2026.

He is a prop, 1.84m and 123kg, born in Guilherand-Granges.

He turned professional at Perpignan, moved to Narbonne in 2015 for a season, then Oyonnax in 2016, where he won a Pro D2 title in 2017. That spell ended after a year and he went home to Aubenas.

Narbonne took him back in 2018 and that is where he rebuilt. A Nationale semi-final and final, promotion to Pro D2 in 2020-21, and 78 matches for the club. Bayonne signed him in the summer of 2022 after Narbonne went back down.

He established himself in the Top 14 almost immediately and Bayonne extended him to 2026. For four seasons he shared the tighthead shirt with Tevita Tatafu and Pieter Scholtz, and there were long stretches where he was the one Gregory Patat started.

In January 2023 he was fined €300 by the Bayonne prosecutor’s office for slapping a young woman outside a nightclub while drunk. The club did not impose any sporting sanction.

A heavy, low scrummager who spent seven seasons in the lower divisions and never looked out of place when he finally got up. Provence are getting a prop who knows exactly how hard the climb is.