Pierre Azagoh

Early in 2020-21 Pierre Azagoh was barely playing and Paris were arranging to send him to Aurillac in the second division. Other men’s injuries stopped it. He finished that season established, and eighteen months after the loan was mooted he was starting a Test for France in Australia.

Lock at Stade Français, 1.96m and 103kg, and 28 years old.

Pierre-Henri in full, born in Nîmes, he learned the game at the RMCS 77 rugby school. France won the Under-18 European championship with him in 2016 as holders and favourites, which is the harder way to win it.

2017-18 gave him three things at once: a professional debut at Massy, an Under-20 Six Nations title and a junior world championship. When Massy went down to the third division in 2019 he left for a two-year deal in Paris.

What made his reprieve that season worth something was the company he had to get past. Yoann Maestri, Mathieu De Giovanni and Paul Gabrillagues were all in the same second row, and he came through the back half of the campaign ahead of enough of them to earn two more years.

Fabien Galthié picked him for the tour of Australia in June 2021, in a party carrying twenty-two uncapped players. He did not play the first Test. He started the second alongside Cyril Cazeaux and France won 28-26. He was not down to start the third either, until Cazeaux turned an ankle and Azagoh went in beside Romain Taofifénua for a 33-30 defeat.

June 2024 brought another squad, thirty-two men for Argentina with the senior players rested, and a match against Uruguay that July for the development side, which does not count as a cap.