Sergio Lanfranchi

Orphan of both parents, after school he was a combatant in Piedmont for the Italian Resistance and,[1] returning to Parma after the war, he started to work and play rugby union for the local team in 1946;[2] with Parma he collected 101 caps[3] and won the title of Italian champion in 1950.[4]

After winning the scudetto, he moved to France and established in Grenoble, becoming part of the local team which never, until that date, won at the end of the championship; there, having learnt to play in all the forwards' positions and, sometimes as fly-half and centre,[5] was between the most important players who led Grenoble to the 1953-54 French Rugby Union Championship played in Toulouse against Cognac, which was won thanks to a try scored by Lanfranchi 20 minutes before the end of the match.[6]

His international career covered 15 entire years, from 27 March 1949; when he debuted in Marseille against France, until 29 March 1964 in Parma,[7] also against France,[8] with an average of 21 matches, most of them against France, who were unbeaten. He played for Italy until 38 years and for FC Grenoble until 40 years,[9] when he moved to Montceau-les-Mines[10] as player-coach,[11] alternating his career at Montchanin; it is not clear if his career ended in 1971 at age 46 or in 1973 at age 48 due to a discording sources,[12] however, it was in Montchanin that he definitively established; in 1978 he had a brief experience in Italy as coach for L'Aquila Rugby,[13] which soon terminated due to a lack of synthony with the rugby environment of his home country.

He died in Barjols, in the Var, on 22 January 2000, at 74 years. In his honour, the municipal stadium in Parma located at Via Piacenza was named after him. Said stadium was demolished in 2008 to be replaced by the new Stadio 25 Aprile in Moletolo that,however, in January 2015, was named after Lanfranchi by the Parma city hall;[14] the stadium is the home field of Zebre in Pro14.

• Sergio Lanfranchi international stats at ESPN Scrum