One of France’s lesser known players was Jean-Baptiste Lafond. I became a fan of his during the 1991 Rugby World Cup where he was the joint top try scorer with David Campese.
This video actually doesn’t do justice to his skills – he was a wonderfully balanced runner, with a swerve that caused opposing defences a lot of headaches. He was unlucky not to be a more regular started for France, but he was behind some French legends like Saint-Andre, Lagisquet and Blanco.
Still, he was one of my favourite players growing up.
