Early Antoine Dupont prognosis not looking good for France

Early reports this Friday morning around the extent of the injury to Antoine Dupont are not looking good for France and their mercurial captain.

Dupont is suspected to have broken a bone in his face following a head-on-head clash with Namibia centre Johan Deysel.

He was taken from the pitch to hospital for an examination and scans on the suspected break, leaving France facing the nightmare scenario of being without their star captain until the knock-out phases of the Rugby World Cup.

RMC Sport report that Dupont's brother has confirmed that the scrumhalf has suffered a fracture to his zygomatic bone.  This would normally mean a six-week recovery time, which would end the scrumhalf's participation in the World Cup.

However, all is not lost, with hopes that the recovery time could potentially be shortened to four weeks, depending on the severity of the injury, which is not yet known, with medics waiting for a hematoma to his face to reduce before making any further prognosis.

The next 48 hours will be crucial.

In the circumstances, it is not inconceivable that Dupont will play with heavy padding to his face or even a protective face mask, to allow him to return to the field as early as possible. Should the recovery time be reduced to four weeks, Dupont could yet feature in a potential semi-final, should France make it that far.

However, it would mean he will miss a likely quarter-final against one of Ireland, South Africa or Scotland.

As France waits with bated breath for news on Dupont, Fabien Galthie has defended his decision to bring the superstar scrumhalf back on after halftime.

"There's a suspicion of a crack or fracture in his jaw. He's gone for tests," said Gatlhie after the match. "We'll wait for the results before moving forward. We need to take advantage of this great victory and the players' fine performance."

With some questioning why Dupont was risked against Pool A n Namibia, Galthie was quizzed on why he decided to bring the Touslain back on after halftime in Marseille.

"What do you want me to say? You can't take 14 players off at half-time. Our plan was to bring off one, three and five at half-time, then the rest at the 55th minute. The aim was to give everyone some game-time and not sit back for a month. The players wanted and needed to play."

Back row Francois Cros also expressed his sadness at the news that Dupont's injury was serious.

"I hope it's not serious. If it is, it would obviously have an impact on him and on us. We still have some experienced nines who can take over.

"Watching the replay, we knew the decision the referee would make. But we had no idea about Toto's [Antoine Dupont’s] condition. We didn’t know if he was going off as a precaution or if he was really hurt until the end of the match."

Centre Gael Fickou said: "At the moment, we don't know what's wrong. We're obviously waiting and waiting. We're frustrated for him. I hope he'll be able to play and that it's nothing serious. We're all waiting impatiently for the results. When he went off, we suspected it was a bit serious."