The Top 14 returns this weekend, 5 and 6 September, and LOU open their campaign at home to Clermont. Their last warm-up game, a win over Leinster, left its mark: three Lyon players came off injured, and the most seriously hurt plays in the thinnest position in the squad.

Three injuries against Leinster

Avé Maalo is the worst hit of the three Lyon players forced off against the Irish province. The tighthead prop has a dislocated right shoulder, with no timeframe given for his return. He had turned 23 the day before the game.

Sam Simmonds and Liam Allen are also doubtful for Round 1, as reported by Le Progrès. But it is at tighthead prop that the situation is becoming critical.

Two regular starters gone, two new signings in the treatment room

Last season, LOU played twenty-six Top 14 games and three players shared the number 3 shirt: Irakli Aptsiauri twelve times, Jermaine Ainsley ten times and Cedate Gomes Sa four times.

Ainsley has left the club and Gomes Sa has signed for USAP. Fourteen of the twenty-six starts have therefore gone in a single off-season.

The club filled that gap with two props, Tongan Opeti Helu and Fijian Tim Hoyt. Helu, 190 cm and 127 kg, has a major muscle tear announced on 25 August. Hoyt has a calf injury. Neither has yet played for Lyon.

Aptsiauri and a 21-year-old academy player

To take on Clermont, Karim Ghezal and his staff therefore have Irakli Aptsiauri, 23, and academy player Thomas Marceline. The Georgian made twelve starts and two appearances off the bench in the Top 14 last season, which makes him the only established option in the position.

Marceline, born on 18 June 2005, has been named in a Top 14 matchday squad four times, always among the replacements and never as a starter. At 180 cm and 110 kg, he is also twelve kilos lighter than any of the other tighthead props mentioned.

The club is looking for a medical joker. The fixture list does not leave it much time.