Thomas Jolmès

Thomas Jolmès comes from a family that has been in Grenoble sport for three generations. His father Franz locked the scrum for the city’s club, his mother Anne Brouzet played for the women’s side, his uncle Olivier Brouzet was one of the faces of the club’s best era, and his grandfather Yves held the French shot put record from 1973 to 2007.

A second row of 2.04m and 117kg, on Pau‘s books at 30.

Seyssins had him at ten and the family club at fourteen, and he went through the regional centre and then the national one at Marcoussis. The France age-grade sides took him from under-17 to under-20, and he scored for the universities against England in 2016.

Two years in the Grenoble first team produced seventeen matches and no points, in a side that was fielding academy players almost exclusively. He left at 21 convinced he would get no further there.

Patrice Collazo took him to La Rochelle in 2017 and it worked immediately. His second season brought twenty-six matches, nineteen of them starts, a European final against Clermont in which he came on for Mathieu Tanguy, and a French Barbarians cap against Tonga.

A change of coaching staff undid it. Jono Gibbes did not pick him, three matches was the whole of his last season there, and he left.

He arrived in the Béarn for 2024-25. At 2.04m he is the tallest man in the squad, and a lineout forward whose Top 14 career has turned twice on who happened to be coaching him.