Thomas Laclayat

Thomas Laclayat scored seven tries in eight matches at the start of the 2022-23 season. He is a tighthead prop. A France call-up followed on the strength of it, and he tore a biceps days before the tour.

Tighthead prop at Pau, 1.76m and 125kg, and 28 years old.

At 1.76m he is one of the shortest front-row forwards in professional rugby, which in a scrum is the advantage the whole career rests on.

Born in the Bresse, he started at Haute Bresse in 2005 and joined Oyonnax as a schoolboy in 2013, staying through every grade. The age-grade sides had him at under-18, under-19 and under-20, including a junior world championship in 2017.

His debut came a fortnight after his twentieth birthday, in a European match against Connacht. Relegation the following year gave him rugby, a first start against Biarritz and a first try against Provence, and by 2020-21 he was one of two tightheads at the club, playing twenty-nine matches.

The season after that brought thirty matches, a place in the second division’s team of the season, an invitation from the British Barbarians and a France call-up for the tour of Japan, as one of only four second-division players selected. He did not play.

The height is worth returning to, because it explains both the tries and the caps that never came. A prop of 1.76m gets under taller men in the scrum and is quick enough over five metres to finish from close range, which is where his seven came from. It also makes him a specialist rather than an all-rounder, and France have generally picked all-rounders.

Nor did he in February 2023, when he was called into a Six Nations squad having been overlooked at the start of it. Three squads, no cap, and a Top 14 career that started in the division below.