The story comes from La Dépêche du Midi and has not yet been confirmed by the club: Castres Olympique are said to have reached an agreement with Lucas Martins, the SU Agen winger, for the 2027-2028 season. At 23, the Portugal international arrives with a set of numbers that explains the Tarn club’s haste, and that answers fairly precisely what CO were missing last season.
Seventeen tries, the best total in the league
Lucas Martins’ 2025-2026 season is not up for debate. Twenty-four Pro D2 matches, twenty-two starts, seventeen tries. That is the best total in the league, ahead of Biarritz hooker Clément Martinez and Oyonnax winger Karim Qadiri, who stopped at sixteen.
| Player | Club | Matches | Tries |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lucas Martins | Agen | 24 | 17 |
| Clément Martinez | Biarritz | 24 | 16 |
| Karim Qadiri | Oyonnax | 25 | 16 |
| Raffaele Costa Storti | Grenoble | 17 | 15 |
| Dorian Marco Pena | Valence Romans | 26 | 15 |
The jump is all the sharper for being recent. A year earlier, at Agen already, Martins had finished his first full season with five tries in nineteen matches. So he has more than tripled his output in twelve months, while becoming an almost undisputed starter.
A winger Portugal brought through early
Born on 16 January 2003, a product of Blagnac before he moved to the Lot-et-Garonne, Lucas Martins already has four caps for Portugal and three tries. A finisher with international experience at an age when many Pro D2 wingers are still waiting for their first regular run of starts.
The Castres hole is exactly in that position
That is where the move makes sense. Last season, in Top 14, the Castres wingers and full-backs scored little, and above all in a very scattered way.
| Player | Position | Matches | Tries |
|---|---|---|---|
| Théo Chabouni | Full-back | 22 | 8 |
| Christian Ambadiang | Winger | 15 | 7 |
| Nathanael Hulleu | Winger | 8 | 4 |
| Geoffrey Palis | Winger | 16 | 2 |
| Adam Vargas | Winger | 13 | 2 |
| Rémy Baget | Winger | 11 | 2 |
| Vuate Karawalevu | Full-back | 12 | 1 |
Seven players for twenty-six tries between them. No Castres winger went beyond seven scores over the campaign, when Martins got seventeen on his own a division below. So CO are not looking for one more winger, they are looking for a finisher.
A move timed on two contracts running out
The timing reported by La Dépêche fits with the rest. Geoffrey Palis, 35, and Adam Vargas, who turns 26 next week, come to the end of their deals in June 2027. Martins would arrive at precisely that moment, for the 2027-2028 season.
It is the house method. Castres have already wrapped up the extensions of six senior players this summer, including Baptiste Delaporte and Loïs Guérois-Galisson until 2030, and had brought forward the arrival of Théo Vidal during the summer. The Tarn club negotiate early, over long deals, and avoid finding themselves on the market at the same time as everyone else.
What still needs confirming
There has been no official communication from Castres Olympique or SU Agen at this stage. The RCT blog, which relayed the story, adds that CO are said to have got ahead of Stade Français on the deal. Until the clubs announce anything, Lucas Martins starts his 2026-2027 season in the Agen shirt, with the Pro D2 season resuming in late August.
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