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France name Antoine Dupont as stand-in captain
By Paul Smith
Antoine Dupont will captain France during next month’s Autumn International Series the French Rugby Federation has announced.
Dupont stands in for France's usual captain, back-rower Charles Ollivon, who is expected to be on the sidelines until next year with a serious knee injury.
The 24-year-old Toulouse scrum half, who is considered one of the world’s leading players, has over the last two years produced a string of stand-out performances. As a result he was named as player-of-the-tournament at the conclusion of the 2020 Six Nations.
The no.9 reportedly won the role ahead of domestic team-mate and childhood friend Anthony Jelonch and his Toulouse captain Julien Marchand. Racing 92 centre Gael Fickou and La Rochelle’s No. 8 Gregory Alldritt are also believed to have been considered for the position.
Les Bleus' new captain has made 32 test appearances since making his international debut as a 20-year-old in 2017.
He has plenty of domestic experience having featured 61 times for Castres before making the short journey to join their Top 14 rivals Toulouse in 2017.
Another Toulouse player, prop Dorian Aldegheri, has been named to replace La Rochelle’s Uini Atonio in the squad after the giant tight-head withdrew due to injury.
Atonio, 31, suffered a muscle injury and as a result was replaced after an hour of his club’s Top 14 victory over Toulon on Sunday.
The 28-year-old Aldegheri faces stiff competition from Lyon’s experienced Demba Bamba and Castres’ Wilfrid Hounkpatin for a starting berth in the French front row.
Les Bleus host Argentina on November 6, Georgia eight days later and New Zealand on November 20.
Fabien Galthie’s squad met up at their training base on Sunday and will miss their club games next weekend.
France finished as runners-up in the 2021 Six Nations winning three of their five matches but suffering an unexpected round three 23-27 home defeat at the hands of Scotland which scuppered their title hopes.
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Latest Comments
Well that sux.
Go to commentsLike I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.
Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.
So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).
You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.
I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?
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