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France captain Antoine Dupont confirms knee injury rumours
By PA
France captain Antoine Dupont is set for a lengthy spell on the sidelines after rupturing his cruciate ligaments during Saturday’s Six Nations match against Ireland.
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The scrum-half was helped from the pitch in the 29th minute of France’s 42-27 victory following an incident with Tadhg Beirne and Andrew Porter, in which Beirne fell on his right leg during a ruck clearout.
In a post on X, Dupont said: “The heart hurts even more than the knee when you have to leave your friends before the last step. I am proud of what we accomplished yesterday and with all my strength with you, you will do it.
“Rupture of the cruciate ligaments. This is the beginning of a new challenge, I’ll see you in a few months on the field.”
Le coeur est encore plus douloureux que le genou au moment de devoir abandonner les copains avant la dernière marche. Je suis fier de ce que nous avons accompli hier et de toutes mes forces avec vous, vous allez le faire.
Rupture des ligaments croisés. C’est le début d’un nouveau… pic.twitter.com/shQK4PSLsk— ??????? ?????? (@Dupont9A) March 9, 2025
The extent of his injury and its cause was one of the main talking points following France’s emphatic victory over Ireland in Dublin.
WWe have cited two players – Tadhg Beirne and Andrew Porter – in our post-match report,” said a furious Fabien Galthie in the post-match press conference.
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Speaking to France 2 TV, he added: “In terms of the action, in my opinion it was reprehensible, and there are ways to study and analyse it.
Galthie was also angered by the challenge that ended Pierre-Louis Barassi’s participation in the second half. Ireland’s Calvin Nash, in the team as a late replacement for James Lowe, was shown a yellow card following head-on-head contact with Barassi.
“We have also highlighted Nash to the citing commissioner for Pierre-Louis Barassi, who did not respond well to the HIA (head injury assessment) protocol,” said Galthie.
“We are angry and we want an explanation. We must protect our players. There are rules, regulations.”
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I think world rugby are more than fed up with the petulant and disingenious Galthie.
France have more red cards than all other six nations combined under Galthie particularly with dangerous headshots.
Galthie’s previous puclicity stunt re Ringrose and Ntamack also would have raised shackles and it allowed a BS shower of disinformation to erode public confidence in the sanctions system.
If you get a red right before a fallow week, you will usually be successful in having club matches count. You are already released, you must show you are expected to play. If you get a red the week before another international you wont.
The latter case has too much uncertainty to reach the expected threshold. The team might win/lose, players in same positions get injured etc. So its a 50:50 chance you would be released based on the upcoming International. Then you have to show if you get the coin flip that you would be expected to play. The only time a player was ever successfukl was Willemse 2024.
In the former situation: Atonio (2023), Haouas (2023) and Danty (2024) all benefitted.
There may be an issue where the net ban is too low. But it has nothing to do with Rongrose v Ntamack. These are not comparable due to the fallow week.
Galthie was the witness in ALL these cases. He knows this. WR knows he knows this. Every Union knows he knows this. He did it to put pressure on officials and Ireland before the match.
France’s record for red cards is nothing short of disgraceful. People need to see through Galthie’s petulance.
I can’t believe the “rugby incident“ conclusion on the Dupont’s season-ender. Beirne clearly did not wrap, he deliberately tucked his arm in the chicken wing position to buttress his shoulder on contact.
This was a penalty any day of the week, even without any injury involved, and I don’t care about the “everybody does this“ excuse. Then everybody should be penalized. They’d clean up their act real quick. If the law is on the books, it should be enforced.
What a pitiful look at World Rugby. Always those lofty promises. “Player safety”, “Growing the game“ and all the other nice phrases, that make us all warm and fuzzy. But at the end of the day, none of that is sincere. Here World Rugby fails to protect its #1 asset.
Under Galthie’s reign France have more red cards than all other 6 nations teams combined. It appears he is only concerned about player welfare when it relates to his stars.
This is where CONSISTENCY comes in. Irish player cleary TARGETS the leg of Duponte WITH a ZERO attempt to wrap his arms.
Sorry, but there is no evidence for that claim. Its a lie. Rugby incident as agreed by everyone bar the petulant Galthie.
Consistency is France having more red cards under Galthie than all other 6 nations combined.
Irish Knee Cappers Strike Again!