Nicolas Mas
Nicolas Mas (born May 25, 1980 in Perpignan

Perpignan

-Sport:Perpignan is a rugby stronghold: their rugby union side, USA Perpignan, is a regular competitor in the Heineken Cup and seven times champion of the Top 14 , while their rugby league side plays in the engage Super League under the name Catalans Dragons.-Culture:Since 2004, every year in the...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

) is a Catalan

Catalan people

The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...

/French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 rugby union

Rugby union

Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

 footballer, who currently plays for the USA Perpignan

USA Perpignan

Union Sportive des Arlequins Perpignanais or Unió eSportiva Arlequins de Perpinyà , generally abbreviated as USAP in both languages, is a French rugby union club that plays in the city of Perpignan in Pyrénées-Orientales. The club currently competes in the Top 14, the top level of the French...

 club in the Top 14 French premiership. His usual position is at prop. He also plays for the French national team

France national rugby union team

The France national rugby union team represents France in rugby union. They compete annually against England, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales in the Six Nations Championship. They have won the championship outright sixteen times, shared it a further eight times, and have completed nine grand slams...

.

Perpignan made it to the final of the 2002-03 Heineken Cup

2002-03 Heineken Cup

The 2002–03 Heineken Cup was the eighth edition of the Heineken Cup. Competing teams from France, Ireland, Italy, Wales, England and Scotland, were divided into six pools of four, in which teams played home and away matches against each other...

, but went down to fellow French club Stade Toulousain

Stade Toulousain

Stade Toulousain, also referred to as Toulouse, is a French rugby union club from Toulouse in Midi-Pyrénées. Toulouse is one of the finest rugby clubs in Europe, having won the Heineken Cup four times – in 1996, 2003, 2005 and 2010. They were also runners-up in 2004 and 2008 against London Wasps...

. Mas made his international debut in a match against the All Blacks

All Blacks

The New Zealand men's national rugby union team, known as the All Blacks, represent New Zealand in what is regarded as its national sport....

 on June 28, 2003. He did not play at the 2003 Rugby World Cup

2003 Rugby World Cup

The 2003 Rugby World Cup was the fifth Rugby World Cup and was won by England. Originally planned to be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, all games were shifted to Australia following a contractual dispute over ground signage rights between the New Zealand Rugby Football Union and Rugby World...

 in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 later that year. Perpignan made it to the final of the Top 14 premiership in 2004, but were defeated by Stade Français, 38 to 20.

He did not play for France in 2004, being an unused bench replacement in tests against Australia

Australia national rugby union team

The Australian national rugby union team is the representative side of Australia in rugby union. The national team is nicknamed the Wallabies and competes annually with New Zealand and South Africa in the Tri-Nations Series, in which they also contest the Bledisloe Cup with New Zealand and the...

 and Argentina

Argentina national rugby union team

The Argentina national rugby team, nicknamed Los Pumas, represents Argentina in international rugby union matches. The team, which plays in sky blue and white jerseys, is organised by the Argentine Rugby Union .Argentina played its first international rugby match in 1910 against a touring British...

 in November. The following year he played four times for France during the 2005 Six Nations Championship

2005 Six Nations Championship

The 2005 RBS 6 Nations Championship was the sixth series of the Six Nations Championship to be held since the competition expanded in 2000 to include Italy...

.

Mas was named to the France squad for the 2007 Rugby World Cup

2007 Rugby World Cup

The 2007 Rugby World Cup was the sixth Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. Twenty nations competed for the Webb Ellis Cup in the tournament, which was hosted by France from 7 September to 20 October. France won the hosting rights in 2003,...

 as a replacement for the injured Sylvain Marconnet

Sylvain Marconnet

Sylvain Marconnet is a French rugby union footballer, currently playing for Biarritz Olympique having signed from Stade Français in the Top 14 club competition in France. His usual position is prop...

.

External links

• Official website
• Nicolas Mas on lequipe.fr
• Nicolas Mas on sporting-heroes.net
• Nicolas Mas on sporting-heroes.net
• Nicolas Mas on ercrugby.com