Tom Banks

Tom Banks finished his first season in France as the most-used player in the whole competition. He was 31, he had just arrived from Japan, and his club won the Challenge Cup and lost a championship final to Stade Toulousain around him.

Full-back or wing for Montpellier, 1.86m and 93kg, and 32 years old.

Brisbane produced him and university rugby kept him for two years. Queensland gave him a Super Rugby debut in March 2015 and then one further match across two seasons, which is close to a rejection. What changed it was the second-tier competition: six tries in seven games for Queensland Country in 2016 and a place in the team of the tournament.

The Brumbies took a one-year gamble for 2017 and he was their first-choice full-back inside a season. He extended twice, turned down a lucrative French offer in 2019 to stay until 2022, and won Super Rugby AU in 2020.

Australia first called him up in September 2017, as cover for the injured Dane Haylett-Petty, without using him. His cap came on 25 August 2018 against New Zealand in Auckland. Twenty-one followed, sixteen of them starts, across four Rugby Championships.

Three years at Mie Honda Heat in Japan came next, then the Top 14 in the summer of 2025 on a three-year deal.

The Japanese seasons are the part that looks odd on paper and probably explain the rest. League One is a shorter competition with a lighter collision load, and he arrived in France with three years of it behind him rather than three more Super Rugby campaigns.

A counter-attacking fifteen with an unusual tolerance for workload, which at 32 is the quality his club is actually buying.