Wenceslas LAURET

Biog of Wenceslas LAURET :

Wenceslas Lauret might have only played for 52 minutes in his one and only selection at international level on 12 June 2010, the day the French team met their Waterloo in the Cape suffering a humiliating 42-17 defeat at the hands of the Springboks, but Marc Lièvremont singled him out as one of the rare satisfactions to be gained from the tour. The young Biarritz player, just 21 years of age, was the happy surprise-pick in the French squad selected to play against the world champions and Argentina, both in their own backyards. That season, Lauret appeared for the Biarritz first team on just 14 occasions (he first played at the professional level the previous year), but he was on the starting team sheet seven times, and for some of the most important matches at that: the quarter-final, semi-final and final (defeat) of the European cup in particular.

Lauret passed through the National Rugby Centre at Marcoussis the same year (2007-2008) as two other Tricolores hopefuls, Alexandre Lapandry and Benjamin Fall, playing at Under-18 and Under-19 levels for France and continuing his rugby education under the wing of his role model Serge Betsen at Biarritz. After his good end–of-season form, Lauret was to have played for France A in the Churchill Cup but finally took advantage of the non-selection of Ouedraogo and Burban (a dispute between the League and the Federation over the availability of players for the French Rugby Sevens team) to take his place on the senior tour and seems to have seized the opportunity. Perhaps it’s the start of a long career in blue for Lauret, whose parents came from La Réunion to settle in Tarbes. Lauret, a tackler/scavenger without equal, reminisces, “From my first rugby session onwards, there was an exercise where you tackle a big foam pad, get up and tackle another, I loved it”.