Bevan French

Bevan French (born 4 January 1996) is an Australian professional rugby league footballer who plays as a fullback and winger for the Wigan Warriors in the Super League.

He has played for the Parramatta Eels in the NRL and the Indigenous All Stars side.

Playing career

Early in 2013, French was pursued by six NRL clubs; Parramatta, Melbourne, Newcastle, the Gold Coast, Penrith and St. George Illawarra. He eventually signed for the Parramatta Eels, stating that he chose the club because he "just had a feeling". In 2015 and 2016, he played for the Eels' NYC team. In 2015, he began the season at five-eighth, before moving back to fullback for the remainder of the year, finishing the season with 16 tries in 22 games. On 11 July 2015, he re-signed with the Eels on a 3-year contract to the end of the 2018 season.

2016
In February, French participated in Eels' 2016 NRL Auckland Nines tournament win, scoring 8 tries in the tournament, the record for most tries in a Nines tournament. He was also named in the team of the tournament. In Round 12 of the 2016 NRL season, French made his NRL debut against the Newcastle Knights, scoring a try in the 20-18 win at Hunter Stadium. In Round 15, against the South Sydney Rabbitohs, French scored his first double in the Eels 30-12 win at ANZ Stadium. In Round 17, against the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, French scored his first hat trick of tries in the Eels 34-24 loss at Shark Park. In the last 2 matches of the regular season, French switched with Michael Gordon to play from the wing to fullback, scoring 2 hat tricks in 2 weeks in a row in the Eels 30-18 win against the St George Illawarra Dragons and 40-18 win against the New Zealand Warriors. French quickly went on to be a try-scoring sensation in his debut season the NRL, being the club's highest try-scorer with 19 tries in 13 matches in the 2016 NRL season.

2017
On 10 February 2017, French represented the Indigenous All Stars against the World All Stars in the 2017 All Stars match, playing off the interchange bench in the 34-8 win at Hunter Stadium. French played 16 games for Parramatta in the 2017 season scoring 9 tries but missed most of the season with a troubling hamstring injury. French injured himself just before the start of the finals series, Parramatta's first in eight seasons and missed both finals games against Melbourne and North Queensland.

2018
French started the 2018 season at fullback ahead of Clint Gutherson who was still out with an injury and the returning Jarryd Hayne. In round 3 of the season, French injured his shoulder in the 14-4 loss to Cronulla and missed the following two games. He was then recalled to the side to face Canberra but was slammed by fans and the media after the match due to the fact that he only made one run for the whole game making 15 metres. French was dropped by coach Brad Arthur for the following week. French spoke of his demotion saying "We spoke about how my shoulder was going to be in pain going into the game and getting a needle before the game that was supposedly meant to numb it for six hours or something, But 15 minutes in I felt it. Because of that I didn't really get into the game and it was playing in the back of my mind, Injury did play a part in my poor performance but it was form as well. Brad pulled me into his office at training and sort of explained why I was dropped and I couldn't blame him, it was the right thing to do."

On 2 June 2018, French was named at fullback for Parramatta's round 13 clash against Newcastle but was taken from the field only two minutes into the match due to a nasty head collision involving Newcastle player Kalyn Ponga. On 13 July 2018, Parramatta who were in last place on the ladder played against Newcastle and with 34 seconds remaining French crossed over to score the match winning try only for the decision to be overturned due to video replays showing French had put a foot into touch while grounding the ball. Newcastle held on to win the game 18-16. On 7 August, French was demoted to reserve grade by coach Brad Arthur after a number of mixed performances. It came in the wake of French speaking to the media a week earlier declaring he was open to the idea of leaving Parramatta if he was not given a chance to play fullback.

2019
At the start of the 2019 NRL season, French was left out of the Parramatta side as coach Brad Arthur went with Blake Ferguson and Maika Sivo as the preferred wing options and Clint Gutherson as the preferred fullback. On 22 April 2019, French scored the first ever try at the new Western Sydney Stadium for the Wentworthville Magpies against Western Suburbs in a 20-14 victory.

On 27 July, French signed a two-year contract with English side Wigan after being frozen out of the first team at Parramatta. Before signing with Wigan, French spent his time with Wentworthville in the Canterbury Cup NSW competition making 15 appearances and scoring 13 tries.

Wikipedia