By Lucky Vince Pienaar
Can the French rugby team recover after their pathetic results of the last few weeks? They lost to Ireland by 21 points, they scraped through to a highly contested win against Scotland by four points and they drew with Italy.
By contrast, at about the same time that Les Bleus were wilting on the vine, Antoine Dupont was treating his fans with his champagne skills in the Vancouver Sevens.
Although Dupont didn’t come on in the run-on sides, his impact when he did was something for his fans to delight in.
Simply his ability to place a player into open space with every pass justifies his place in the squad, but his biggest moment in this, his debut sevens tournament, came in the quarter-final match against Ireland.
The match had been locked at 5-5 for more than six minutes when Dupont slipped around the blindside of the scrum. There was not a defender in sight. He scored the winning try as the entire Ireland team raced to the open side.
On the same day, about half a world away, at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy in Lille, the National French 15s side was falling apart.
It is only partially correct to say that Italy kept France to a draw because they played out of their skins, as much as it is also true that France played half the match with only 14 players.
But the real truth is that France lost interest after about ten minutes.
Many experts believe Scotland were robbed of a win against France and nobody denies that English referee Christophe Ridley misunderstood the rules when he disallowed Paolo Garbisi a second shot at a penalty which would have given Italy a famous win.
It is very difficult to remember that France swept Italy aside with a 60-7 victory at the Rugby World Cup in October.
And wasn’t it only a few months ago that French coach Fabien Galthié was considered one of the best in the world?
How that myth has exploded!
There was not a single Frenchman in the locker room after the match who wasn’t sulking, and the one who was sulking the most was the coach. If the coach is a crybaby himself, who is going to pull the team together?
One assumes that Antoine Dupont takes no pleasure from watching his national team collapse without him, but he will be, let’s say, just a little surprised.
Wales must be looking forward to playing France in two weeks.
Pictured above: Antoine Dupont.
Image source: X
