France v Wales: Five takeaways as ‘exquisite brilliance’ of Antoine Dupont dazzles but ‘grass roots of regeneration and growth’ for Wales
Antoine Dupont impressed for France on his return to Six Nations duty.
Following a 43-0 victory for France against Wales in the Six Nations opener, here’s James While’s five takeaways from Friday’s meeting at the Stade de France.
The top line
43–0 is a brutal scoreline for the visiting Welsh, with Les Bleus managing a full bonus-point win in a freezing Stade de France, as Antoine Dupont turned on the afterburners in an exquisite 55-minute display of scrum-half art. However, trouble hit France in the last quarter as star fly-half Romain Ntamack was sent off for a high tackle.
A massive 60-minute performance by the French back-row, led by Player of the Match Gregory Alldritt, pulled the hosts through after a stuttering early start that saw ambition take over from pragmatism, until Dupont and his third line just simply put their foot on the ball and decided to play the game their way.
Tries from Théo Attissogbe (2), Louis Bielle-Biarrey (2), Julien Marchand, ?milien Gailleton and Alldritt warmed the 77,432 that braved the Paris chill to cheer their side on, but the scoreline flattered the performance, and despite conceding seven and scoring none, there’s a lot that Wales can take with them from this Six Nations game.
It was a match that defined the term curate’s egg, good in parts, not so good in others, but the biggest take out from the game is France are without their key playmaker for the next few weeks at the very least.
Cruise control
There was so many great moments in this match by this wonderful side – that’s standard and to be expected. But in between those there was moments of huge inaccuracy, periods of arrogant complacency and times when France simply tried too hard to force the pace.
It started when Thomas Ramos, with his first touch of the game, made more metres with one kick as he hit a 70-metre 50/22, than Wales had managed with their 100% possession in the first three minutes. From that moment, France looked like a team not prepared to earn the right to go wide and perhaps took for granted their own superiority. Ramos and Ntamack looked to force the possession and attack, taking individual lines that simply led into dead end streets and it took fully some 20 minutes for them to pay Wales the respect of tying up their defensive numbers to create the space for the French flyers to work their magic.
That first try might be viewed as a Dupont moment, but it was the two minutes of forward abrasion, with Alldritt, Emmanuel Meafou and Paul Boudehent hammering into Wales that narrowed the visitors defence, and it was only when numbers were reduced and out of the game that the scrum-half had the room and moment to make the killer kick.
From that moment onwards, France realised that Wales weren’t going to roll over; the collisions became more accurate, more regular and more plentiful, and as a result of the new found respect the hosts gave Wales, so they were finally able to open up a really committed and intelligent defensive display from Warren Gatland’s men.
Dupont
Even by his standard this was a performance of exquisite brilliance. The speed of his passing, the vision of his delivery, the accuracy of the passing – everything he did made you think that you were in some sort of Matrix sequel where the time around him stopped and he could choose his next move whilst sipping an espresso and munching on a croissant.
Things you don’t associate with him stood out too; the pressure he applied on the Welsh goal line defence was quite astonishing at times and his work in the first half in defence was the genesis of two French tries.
The kick pass to Attissogbe happened in the blink of an eye, but compared to the coruscating run that ripped the visitors defence apart before Dupont threw out a 35 metre pass to his right wing was simply taking the mickey, although if you were Welsh you might have argued about the geometry of the flight of the ball.
When you’ve backs of the quality of Ramos, Bielle-Biarrey and Ntamack, to shine as brightly as the great scrum-half did tonight is a hard task, but watching this game in the freezing press box of Stade de France you could only conclude that this game was Antoine Dupont and 29 other blokes having a kick around.
Remarkable.
France derailed by Ntamack red
In the 69th minute of this match, France’s tournament became almost derailed after the first station as superstar fly-half Ntamack got his marching orders from Paul Williams for a clumsy and needless shoulder clash with Ben Thomas’ head.
There was zero doubt about the call and the speed with which the bunker official reported back to the on-field team suggested they were as certain as those in the stands. Given the state of the game and the 38-point lead France had at that point, you’d wonder what on earth was going through Ntamack’s head as he remained upright, never looking near legal, as he walloped the Welsh centre in a nasty incident.
France had opted to go 6-2 on the bench with only Nolann Le Garrec and Gailleton covering the backline. Sure, Ramos has played a lot of games at 10, but as France prepare to travel to Twickenham for Le Crunch in Round Two, you’d surely want Matthieu Jalibert to at least have had some game time.
This incident will attract a minimum of a three-week ban, of that you can be sure. Ntamack, you might argue, is only one player, but he is a vital cog in the Toulouse playmaking axis alongside Dupont and Ramos.
As things go, this takes every bit of gloss off this result for Les Bleus, a hammer blow with England up next and it will be interesting to see how Fabien Galthie reacts to this huge setback.
Welsh Hwyl
Putting this Welsh performance into context is hard. This is a side with an average age of 24; callow in Test terms, inexperienced even at club level, yet to see the passion and commitment in defence against the tsunami of French attacking genius shows that these youngsters played with pride and guts.
In the middle of everything was skipper Morgan, massive in the close quarter work, thundering into ruck after ruck, tackle after tackle as his chest burst with pride and his shoulders hammered anything that game down his channel. On the right wing, Tom Rogers could only wish for the speed of ball that came the way of the French backline as he did everything right and very little wrong, especially in the aerial battle, a real superpower of the Wales and Scarlets flyer, and his try-saving hold up of Dupont was a real feather in his cap.
With Aaron Wainwright off early in the match with a nasty cheek injury, Tommy Reffell did everything he could to match the brilliance of Francois Cros and Alldritt at the breakdown, stealing a couple of crucial turnover when Les Bleus were in full sail down the middle of the pitch.
But for all of the sheer commitment and resilience of this Welsh side, the simple truth is that they lacked any form of penetration, whether through gas, guile or grunt. They were smashed on the gainline and the midfield, losing Owen Watkin after 28 minutes really failed to control the ball they had, often finding themselves way behind the original point of possession and forced to run laterally against the blue wall.
Test rugby is one of the harshest environments in sport – and it takes something special to survive in that brutal arena. Wales today showed the grass roots of regeneration and growth, but they have a long way to go in terms of their attacking systems and carrying ability before they’ll be anything near the expectations of their devoted rugby public.
