Record haul from Danish debutant Cassius

NAMED after the greatest heavyweight champion of the world, Cassius Deschamps floored Estonia last week with one of the most remarkable debuts in recent rugby history.

The Westcombe Park/ Guy’s Hospital player scored 42 points including two tries and 16 conversions on his debut for Denmark: a crushing 125-7 win in Rugby Europe’s Conference 2 North division.

The centre-cum-wing’s tally is not only a Danish record but puts him third on the all-time list of top points scorers on debut, behind Simon Culhane (45 points, New Zealand v Japan, 1995) and Charlie Hodgson (44 points, England v Romania, 2001).

“Everyone played their part in the win and we played really well as a team, I wouldn’t have got anywhere near as many points if it wasn’t for the conversions,” Deschamps said.

“I wasn’t kicking well in the warm-up but then one of the coaches suggested a new routine that I hadn’t even heard of before. I tried it about half-an-hour before the match and it went well.”

Deschamps, a secondyear physiotherapy student at Kings College Hospital, recovered from a sprained ankle while playing for Westcombe Park just in time to make his debut.

He added: “We had a solid game plan had been training with each other for a couple of weeks before whereas I think Estonia’s flight only got in at 10 o’clock the night before and they hadn’t had much time to train together. They never really got off the starting blocks.”

Deschamps was brought up in Copenhagen until age 11 and his mother is halfDanish, half-Guyanese.

A converted footballer, Deschamps started playing rugby at 16 at Hove RUFC and represented Sussex age groups before heading over to France to spend time at Racing 92’s famed academy.

But the 20-year-old doesn’t envisage doing a Jamie Roberts and combining a career in medicine with professional rugby.

“I’m going down the medical route and I’m happy with where my rugby is – I don’t think I’ll take it much further than playing for the Danish national side.”