On 28 June 2008, Clermont lost their ninth league final, 26-20 to Stade Toulousain. Yanis Brosset was forty-seven days old. A year later, when Perpignan beat ASM in the final, he was three hundred and eighty-nine days old. He was two years and sixteen days old on the night Clermont finally won, on 28 May 2010.

This Saturday at 19:05, he starts on the Clermont wing at the Matmut Stadium. Louis Vermeulen, born nine months before him, wears the number 8 shirt.

Both aged eighteen

Vermeulen is 18 years and 11 months old, Brosset 18 years and 4 months. The former has a single Top 14 matchday squad to his name, on 14 February, as a replacement. The latter has none. Their real season was with the Espoirs: twelve appearances for Vermeulen, always at number 8, eight for Brosset, and a French championship title won together on 6 June.

Christophe Urios refuses to see it as a gesture. “It’s an opportunity for them, but above all they’re here because they had a big pre-season and deserve to wear this shirt,” the Clermont director of rugby explained on Friday. Brosset scored three tries in the two pre-season matches.

The circumstances help. Clermont’s injury list includes Cristian Ojovan, with a broken foot, Selevasio Tolofua, with a fractured fibula, and Pita Gus Sowakula, who hurt his hamstring a few hours before departure.

The tenth time in sixteen years

Starting two players under nineteen in the same Top 14 match remains rare. Since 2010, it has happened nine times. This Saturday will be the tenth.

The list reads like a prediction:

2012, Stade Toulousain, three times: Gaël Fickou and Christopher Tolofua.
2017, Union Bordeaux-Bègles: Cameron Woki and Matthieu Jalibert.
2018, Clermont: Samuel Ezeala and Dorian Lavernhe.
2021, Montpellier: Jules Danglot and Paul Vallée.
2022, Brive: Tom Raffy and Léo Carbonneau.
2026, Perpignan, twice: Mayron Fahy, Diego Mascarenc and Simon Sol.

Clermont are therefore the only club to have done it twice, eight years after Ezeala and Lavernhe. And there is a quirk of the calendar: Gaël Fickou, one half of the 2012 Toulouse pair, captains Toulon this Saturday evening, in the same round.

When Hamdaoui made his debut, Brosset was five

The most telling reference point may be on the team sheet itself. The longest-serving player in either squad is Kylan Hamdaoui, the Clermont full-back, whose first match dates back to 31 January 2014. On that day, Brosset was five years and eight months old, Vermeulen six years and four months.

Hamdaoui now has 263 matchday appearances. Vermeulen and Brosset have one between them.