Christophe "Titou" Lamaison (born 8 April 1971) is a former French

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

footballer who represented

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

at international level, and

Brive Brive-la-Gaillarde (; Limousin dialect of ), commonly known as simply Brive, is a commune of France. It is a sub-prefecture and the largest city of the Corrèze department. It has around 46,000 inhabitants, while the population of the agglome ...

Agen Agen (, , ) is the prefecture of the Lot-et-Garonne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Southwestern France. It lies on the river Garonne, southeast of Bordeaux. In 2021, the commune had a population of 32,485. Geography The city of Agen l ...

and

Aviron Bayonnais Aviron Bayonnais (AB, ), commonly called Bayonne, is a French rugby union club from Bayonne (''Baiona'' in Basque) in Pyrénées-Atlantiques which competes in the Top 14, the top tier of the National Rugby League (France), French league system. ...

at professional club level. He won 37

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, and at the time of his retirement was the all-time leading points scorer for France, with 380 points, a mark surpassed in August 2015 by

Frédéric Michalak Frédéric Michalak (born 16 October 1982) is a French former rugby union player. His early career was spent playing for his hometown team, Toulouse, in the Top 14 and in the Heineken Cup. He moved to South Africa to play for the Sharks in the ...

. Lamaison played most of his rugby as a

centre Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

, and possessed reliable distribution and kicking skills, which made up for his only real weakness, a lack of pace. He could also play at

fly-half In the game of rugby union, there are 15 players on each team, comprising eight forwards (wearing jerseys numbered 1–8) and seven backs (numbered 9–15). In addition, there may be up to eight replacement players "on the bench", numbered 16� ...

. He made his international debut against

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

on 30 November 1996 in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, and rose to prominence as a key member of France's Grand slam-winning sides of 1997 and 1998. His goalkicking ability also helped

win the

Heineken Cup The European Rugby Champions Cup (known as the Investec Champions Cup for sponsorship reasons) is an annual rugby union tournament organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the top-tier competition for clubs who compete in a pre ...

in 1997 and reach the final in 1998. Lamaison's finest hour came at the

1999 Rugby World Cup The 1999 Rugby World Cup () was the fourth Rugby World Cup, the quadrennial international rugby union championship. It was the first Rugby World Cup to be held in the sport's History of rugby union#The professional era, professional era. Four a ...

in the semifinal against

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Twickenham Twickenham ( ) is a suburban district of London, England, on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historic counties of England, Historically in Middlesex, since 1965 it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, who ...

. Selected at fly-half for the match, Lamaison scored a full house of points and set up several tries. He scored the first try of the game, but New Zealand hit back, with

Jonah Lomu Jonah Tali Lomu (12 May 1975 – 18 November 2015) was a New Zealand professional rugby union player. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential players in the history of the sport, and as one of the most talented sportsm ...

scoring two tries, to lead 24–10 in the second half. Then Lamaison kicked two drop goals and two penalties, bringing the score back to 24–22. In 13 minutes of rugby, the French scored 26 unanswered points and won 43–31 in one of the biggest upsets in Rugby World Cup history. In 2000, Lamaison almost repeated his semifinal performance against New Zealand, scoring 27 points in a 42–33 victory. In 2004, he stopped his professional rugby union career despite lucrative offers from the English side

Saracens file:Erhard Reuwich Sarazenen 1486.png, upright 1.5, Late 15th-century History of Germany, German woodcut depicting Saracens ''Saracen'' ( ) was a term used both in Greek language, Greek and Latin writings between the 5th and 15th centuries to ...

and played for Saint-Médard-en-Jalles in the

Fédérale 2 Fédérale 2 is a rugby union club championship division in France. It is the sixth division of rugby above Fédérale 3. Teams can earn promotion to Fédérale 1, and subsequently, to the National 2 and Nationale leagues, and on to the profes ...

. He retired from all rugby in 2006.

References

External links

French rugby recordsProfile at BBC

Match report from 1999 RWC Semi-finalRWC 1999 Semi-final match report at AllBlacks.com2000 international between All Blacks and FranceProfile at ffr.frNo ifs or buts for `lucky' Lamaison - article from ''The Independent''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lamaison, Christophe 1971 births Living people Rugby union players from Dax, Landes French rugby union players Rugby union centres France international rugby union players Aviron Bayonnais players SU Agen Lot-et-Garonne players CA Brive players 1999 Rugby World Cup players Occitan sportspeople