In the first of a series of articles celebrating the journeymen of French rugby, we look at a player who’s had more clubs than Eduardo Romero.

In today’s cutthroat world of professional rugby, where legions of southern hemisphere mercenaries roam the planet looking for their next pay cheque, the honour of being dubbed the ultimate journeyman is not one to be taken lightly. Le Rugby celebrates a player who knows no bounds when it comes to the motto ‘have boots will travel’. All hail Ramiro Pez.

Born in the Argentine rugby mad town of Cordoba in 1978, Pez has crammed a lot into his nine year playing career. He began life playing for his hometown club, La Tablada. After a successful stint here, he dug out his passport and packed his bags in what would become a common event. In March 2000 he joined Rugby Roma in Italy’s Serie A (which would become the Super 10) and made 19 top flight appearances.

He then became the only player in any sport to swap Rome for Rotherham, as he joined the National League One new boys in August 2001. He guided them to the National Division One title the following season, and was also their top points scorer with 202. He repeated the feat the following season, this time with 264 points, breaking the club record.

The big break arrived via a move to Leicester in the summer of 2003. Sadly for Pez, his time with the Tigers was unproductive as he made just 5 appearances all season. The lure of South Yorkshire proved too much, with Pez returning to pen another deal with Rotherham in the summer of 2004. After only 11 appearances however, he decided to try his luck back in the big time with Bath, signing in February 2005. If his time at Leicester was unproductive, then his time at the Recreation ground was positively nondescript. He made just one appearance and that off the bench.

At a time when our intrepid hero was looking for some stability came an offer from Castres in August 2005, thus beginning his tour of duty around l’ovalie. Running parallel to Scottish international centre Marcus di Rollo’s inglorious one minute career in a Stade Toulousain maillot, Pez managed the same amount of time in a Castres shirt, as a substitute against Montpellier. In a serious case of pieds froids, he had it away on his bicyclette and signed for USAP the following month. His time at the Stade Aime Giral saw him make 11 appearances, although 6 of these were from the bench. However, this was enough to persuade perennial Top 14 strugglers Bayonne to take a punt on him, and he joined them in the summer of 2006. Much like his time in Catalunya, he never established himself in Pays Basque, making only 7 appearances.

Two years in France saw the great one get fièvre de carlingue. Italy was his next destination as he teamed up with Super 10 outfit Venezia. Again, he struggled to nail down a first team spot making only 7 appearances. For now at least, his travels have seen him end up at big spending Toulon for whom he penned a deal in the summer of this year. Although the Top 14 new boys have a huge squad, Pez has to date had plenty of game time down on the Mediterranean, and made a reasonable impact.

On the international stage, Pez bypassed any opportunity to represent the Pumas and is one of a number of Argentinians who chose to don the blue of Italy. He made his debut for the Azzurri in July 2000 against Samoa in Apia and has since gone on to win 30 caps, scoring the not insignificant tally of 215 points.

It’s hard to believe he’s still only 29 years old. What the future holds next is anyone’s guess. A player who’s made just 21 starts in all forms of the domestic game over the last five seasons, it’s difficult to see what the attraction is. Still, you can’t knock someone who’s never been without a club and Rotherham apart, has never been away from the highest level of the game. You also can’t knock someone who’s made his home town in the beautiful cities of Rome, Bath, Venice and Rotherham. To this end, he deserves his place in rugby folklore. Every postman’s worst nightmare, let’s raise a glass to Ramiro ‘not known at this address’ Pez