It is the position where injuries are most common, and the hardest to replace. The start of the season is reminding four clubs of that at once.

Prop is a position apart. It demands technique and bulk that you cannot replace by dipping into the back line, and the pool of players able to hold up a Top 14 scrum is small. When several go down at once, a club has no internal solution.

Four clubs, four situations

Union Bordeaux-Bègles are the hardest hit. Jefferson Poirot has sprained his right knee and is not expected back before mid-October, Ben Tameifuna and Carlü Sadie are injured, and Zaccharie Affane, whom the club kept rather than letting him go back to Brive, has now been injured too. That is four props out of the nine in the squad.

LOU have lost three players in the same position. Avé Maalo dislocated his right shoulder against Leinster and needs surgery, with an absence expected until the end of the calendar year. The two tighthead props signed this summer, Opeti Helu and Tim Hoyt, are also sidelined without having played a single minute in their new colours.

Toulon have just learned that Beka Gigashvili will have foot surgery at the end of the week, with an absence estimated at between one and two months. The Georgian had been carrying the problem for months and playing through it. Jean-Baptiste Gros is also reported to be very doubtful for the trip to Bayonne.

Bayonne, as it happens, are without Pierre Castillon, who is recovering from ruptured cruciate knee ligaments, and Ignacio Calles, who has missed the last few sessions.

A medical joker market that has run dry

The problem does not end with the diagnosis. A replacement still has to be found, and the market is thin at this time of year. Laurent Marti confirmed he was looking for a medical joker for Bordeaux, without success: the leads on Antoine Tichit, 37, a former Castres prop, and Pagakalasio Tafili, 39, who played for Vannes, came to nothing.

The players available in September are, by definition, the ones nobody kept in June. That explains why clubs turn to players at the end of their careers, or put their faith in their youngsters.

Those coping best

Not everyone is in the same boat. Toulon can field Kyle Sinckler and Rabah Slimani at tighthead, and signing the latter suddenly looks even more valuable. Bayonne still have a well-stocked front row with Emerick Setiano, Luke Tagi, Lasha Macharashvili and Tevita Tatafu, the last of whom is back in full training after missing all of pre-season.

LOU, meanwhile, host Clermont with 23-year-old Irakli Aptsiauri and academy prospect Thomas Marceline to cover the number 3 shirt.

Still, these absences weigh on a position where you cannot improvise a replacement, and the first block of the league runs until mid-October, exactly the period during which most of these players are expected back.