Man of the match performance in Toulouse's Champions Cup final win caps a remarkable season for the greatest rugby player of his generation
Man of the match performance in Toulouse's Champions Cup final win caps a remarkable season for the greatest rugby player of his generationas the world’s greatest player. To present evidence that will be sufficient for the nomination of the Frenchman as first among equals in the current pantheon, and top of the all-time tree, too.
Some will stick with another scrum-half in Gareth Edwards, the wizard of the late 1960s and 1970s, whose upper-body strength and quickness of thought – the first metre is run in the head, before any team-mate or opponent knows what is happening – is replicated in the barrel-chested Dupont.Is the 27-year-old now unequivocally ahead of Edwards, or other superb No 9s including Aaron Smith and Joost van der Westhuizen? Maybe, maybe not.
Dupont would go on to contribute four turnovers – the same number as all Leinster’s starting forwards put together – and 15 carries for 60 metres, and eight tackles. One of the turnovers came off a rare error seized on by the Leinster hooker Dan Sheehan for a breakaway run in the 30th minute.
As the former France hooker Benjamin Kayser said of Dupont on TV: “A complete performance – other than scrummaging and throwing in at the line-out, he pretty much did everything.”When Dupont was deflected from leading his country to winning a home World Cup last October by having his cheekbone caved in by a centre from Namibia, it splashed a tearful blot on his copybook, and sent a nation into sporting mourning, while half-ruining the global tournament for many of us neutrals.
Let’s not forget, a large number of those in the 61,500 crowd at Tottenham were hoping more for a Leinster win than obsessing about Dupont, and they would have had it if the Irish side had moved Ciaran Frawley nearer for his failed dropped goal attempt in the 79th minute of normal time, after 11 phases.
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