LONG READ Where have all the great French tighthead props gone?

France for many decades prided itself on its tighthead props. From Alfred ‘The Rock’ Roques in the 1950s, to the great Nicolas Mas, who wore the shirt on 85 occasions for Les Bleus this century.

In between there were some frightening French No.3s: Jean-Pierre Garuet, Robert Paparemborde, Pascal Ondarts and Gerard Cholley to name but a few.

The last of that quartet was arguably the scariest. The Sunday Times once voted Cholley ‘the Most Frightening Frenchman’. When I asked Cholley a decade ago if he bridled at the description, he laughed. “No, it’s a compliment!,” he said. “It’s true. In some matches I started on the loose-head and then moved across to the other side if our tighthead was having a problem. I would sort out the problem.”

If only France had a Cholley to solve their current problem. As far as decent tightheads go, the cupboard is practically bare – and the World Cup kicks off in two years and three weeks. Time is running out for France to bed in a player in rugby’s most technically demanding position.

Last week Bayonne announced that Tevita Tatafu will be out for up to six months after injuring his ankle in a pre-season loosener against Toulouse.

The 22-year-old Tatafu has a good chance of being fit to play in the 2026 Six Nations but he’ll miss France’s November internationals against South Africa, Fiji and Australia.

So will La Rochelle’s Uini Atonio, whose recovery from hamstring surgery will last until next year, by which time he’ll have turned 36. One suspects Atonio’s best days are behind him.

France will be contenders for the 2027 RWC but their chances of lifting the trophy could be fatally undermined if they don’t find a reliable tighthead.

Indeed, he hung up his Test boots at the end of the 2023 World Cup, only to be talked out of retirement by head coach Fabien Galthié a few weeks later.

Evidently Galthié put in a call to Atonio after realising just how limited his tighthead options are. Dorian Aldegheri and Sipili Falatea had provided back-up to Atonio in recent seasons, but neither are top-class. Then there was Mohamed Haouas, whose chronic indiscipline – on and off the pitch – proved too much for Galthié.

Demba Bamba has been plagued by injuries over the years and has failed to fulfil his early promise. So has Thomas Laclayat, who was called into the France squad in 2022 while playing for Oyonnax in the ProD2. Racing 92 signed him on the back of that call-up but Laclayat spent two underwhelming seasons in Paris before joining Pau in the summer.

Then along came Tatafu. The youngster had talent but he also had bulk, and only after he had shed 18 kilos was he deemed ready for Test rugby. Tatafu made his international debut against Japan last November but knee problems ruled him out of the 2025 Six Nations.

Earlier this year Galthié admitted that tighthead prop was “a difficult position…we are obviously continuing to work on it.”

France will be contenders for the 2027 RWC but their chances of lifting the trophy could be fatally undermined if they don’t find a reliable tighthead. To make matters worse for Galthié, France’s rivals are well stocked in his problem position.

England have Will Stuart and Joe Heyes, the latter so impressive during the summer series win in Argentina; Ireland’s Tadhg Furlong is getting on, but they have Finlay Bealham and Tom Clarkson waiting in the wings, as well as the highly-rated 20-year-old Niall Smyth.

As the weekend’s Rugby Championship demonstrated, there are no shortage of effective tightheads in the southern hemisphere. What France would give for a Joel Sclavi or a Thomas du Toit.

Is it any wonder foreign tightheads want to come to France when on average they earn around 20 per cent more than the salary of their 14 team-mates?

France have been aware of this Achilles’ heel for years. In February 2020 it was discussed by Miguel Fernandez, a rugby agent. “There is a severe shortage of tighthead props in France,” he explained. “It’s the position most coveted by clubs.”

To solve this shortage, the Top 14 clubs looked overseas. In the round of matches that took place on the last weekend of January 2020, just four of the 14 tighthead props were French. Last weekend, the opening round of the 2025-26 Top 14 season, the number had increased to six.

Is it any wonder foreign tightheads want to come to France when on average they earn around 20 per cent more than the salary of their 14 team-mates? They arrive from all over the planet: Samoa, Tonga, Moldova, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, England and Georgia.

France produced its greatest tightheads in the amateur era. The sport, particularly the set-piece, has evolved hugely since then. It’s not enough for a tighthead to be just a ‘rock’ in the scrum, a huge slab of beef who ambled across the pitch from one set-piece to the next. Props in the modern game must be able to scrum, lift, jackal, pass, run and tackle. Look at Fletcher Newell’s try against the Pumas last month; the All Blacks tighthead picked a perfect line, accelerated onto the pass like a loose forward and powered through defenders to dot down.

French tightheads haven’t moved with the times. They lack the dynamic power and all-round skills of their major rivals. A case in point is Georges-Henri Colombe, who has won 10 caps in the last two seasons. He stands 6ft 4in and weighs in at around 22 stones. Dynamic, he is not.

Racing 92 weren’t able to turn Colombe into a Test-standard tighthead and nor were La Rochelle, much to the bitter disappointment of head coach Ronan O’Gara. Will Toulouse – the club Colombe joined in the summer – be able to transform him into more than just a big unit?

Fabien Galthié will hope so because the sands of time are running down. Antoine Dupont may be able to work wonders on a rugby pitch but not even he will win France the World Cup if they haven’t got a top-drawer tighthead.