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What the All Blacks make of Antoine Dupont and France's double playmakers
By Tom Vinicombe
While the All Blacks are licking their wounds following a 29-20 loss to Ireland over the weekend, France are still bedding in their new backline set-up, which sees Matthieu Jalibert and Romain Ntamack partner up as dual playmakers in the midfield.
With regular No 12 Virimi Vakatawa out of action for the Autumn Nations Series, the Jalibert/Ntamack combination was first employed against Argentina for 50 minutes and then given a second shot against Georgia over the weekend.
Neither match was really able to showcase the potential strengths of the dual playmaking combination but having not trialled anything else during November, Les Bles head coach Fabien Galthie will likely opt for a similar set-up against the All Blacks in Paris this weekend.
The New Zealand national side were operating with a dual playmaking combo of their own during the Rugby World Cup, with regular pivots Richie Mo'ung and Beauden Barrett sharing the duties from the No 10 and No 15 positions.
With Jordie Barrett putting out some excellent performances for the Hurricanes and older brother Beauden choosing to focus on the fly-half role, the combination that earned the All Blacks a third-place finish at the World Cup has been dropped.
David Havili's promotion into the midfield, however, ensures NZ still have plenty of playmaking talent out on the park, even if it's not in the form of two No 10s.
Of course, France also have scrum-half Antoine Dupont on deck to pull the strings, with the livewire No 9 earning a nomination for World Rugby Player of the Year this week. He will likely prove a pivotal player in this week's clash with the All Blacks this weekend, with his influence something NZ captain Sam Cane has suggested must be kept to a minimum.
"I think we can all agree he thoroughly deserves his nomination for World Player of the Year," Cane said on Monday evening.
"Obviously his speed of delivery is first class. But he's a constant threat with the ball and because he's a constant threat, he creates space for others around him as well because you've got to put so much attention on him defensively. So there'll be a big job for our guys around the week this weekend to limit his opportunities."
While the pre-game studies hadn't quite kicked off in full by Monday evening, Cane said the All Blacks had a reasonable understanding of how the French operate from viewing some of their previous matches.
"I think pretty much the whole team would have watched France play the Argies two weeks ago because we had the early kick-off against Italy. And then the laptop's been set up early this morning once we got here to Paris so a lot of boys are watching footage.
"But from what I've seen so far, obviously a lot of their game revolves around Dupont. They've got a lot of dynamic ball carriers in their forward pack with good footwork that can get over the gain-line and offload. But as always, the French have some exciting attacking guys out wide too so they're playing an exciting brand of footy, that's for sure."
And while the playmaking ability of Ntamack may pose a few different problems for the All Blacks, especially compared to the hard-running option of Ireland's Bundee Aki, it's not something that Cane will lose any sleep over.
"Playing two stand-offs, I don't think it changes too much for us as back-rowers," he said. "We know that you're not going to have your number 12 crashing the ball up like you would maybe if you had a ball-runner in that position but defensively, you still have to be on your toes, coming up, getting off the line and shutting down their time and space, like we try to do regardless."
As the All Blacks' final game of the season, Cane admitted he was hoping to get out on the park against the French after only recently returning from injury, and also suggested that the history between the two sides means head-to-heads will always be something to look forward to an appreciate.
"I know that for us, playing the French, there's so much history between the two sides, particularly at World Cups. And then there's the Dave Gallagher trophy on the line which is a pretty important trophy to us and he's a very special New Zealander."
France hosts the All Blacks at the late time of 9:00pm CET on Saturday.
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Latest Comments
Special player. The full set.
Go to comments“He won a ECL and a domestic treble at the beginning of his career.”
He won 2 ECLs at the beginning of his career (2009, 2011). Since then he’s won 1 in 15 years.
“He then won 3 leagues on the bounce later in his career”
He won 3 leagues on the bounce at the start of his career too - (2009, 2010, 2011).
If we’re judging him by champions league wins, he peaked in his late 30s, early 40s. If we’re judging him by domestic titles he’s stayed pretty consistent over his career. If we’re judging him by overall win rate he peaked at Bayern, and was better at Barcelona than at City. So no, he hasn’t gotten better by every measure.
“You mentioned coaches were older around the mid-2010’s compared to the mid-2000’s. Robson was well above the average age you’ve given for those periods even in the 90’s when in his pomp.”
Robson was 63-64 when he was at Barcelona, so he wasn’t very old. But yeah, he was slightly above the average age of 60 I gave for the top 4 premier league coaches in 2015, and quite a bit above the averages for 2005 and 2025.
“Also, comparing coaches - and their experiences, achievements - at different ages is unstable. It’s not a valid way to compare and tends to torpedo your own logic when you do compare them on equal terms. I can see why you don’t like doing it.”
Well my logic certainly hasn’t been torpedoed. Currently the most successful premier league coaches right now are younger than they were ten years ago. You can throw all the nuance at it that you want, but that fact won’t change. It’s not even clear what comparing managers “on equal terms” would even mean, or why it would be relevant to anything I’ve said.
“You still haven’t answered why Kiss could be a risker appointment?”
Because I’ve been talking to you about football managers. If you want to change the subject then great - I care a lot more about rugby than I do football.
But wrt Kiss, I don’t agree that 25 years experience is actually that useful, given what a different sport rugby was 25 years ago. Obviously in theory more experience can never be a bad thing, but I think 10 years of coaching experience is actually more than enough these days. Erasmus had been a coach for 13 years when he got the SA top job. Andy Farrell had been a coach for 9 when he got the Ireland job. I don’t think anyone would say that either of them were lacking in experience.
Now - what about coaches who do have 25+ years experience? The clearest example of that would be Eddie Jones, who started coaching 31 years ago. He did pretty well everywhere he worked until around 2021 (when he was 61), when results with England hit a sharp decline. He similarly oversaw a terrible run with Australia, and currently isn’t doing a great job with Japan.
Another example is Warren Gatland, who also started coaching full-time 31 years ago, after 5 years as a player-coach. Gatland did pretty well everywhere he went until 2020 (when he was 56), when he did a relatively poor job with the Chiefs, before doing a pretty poor job with the Lions, and then overseeing a genuine disaster with Wales. There are very few other examples, as most coaches retire or step back into lesser roles when they enter their 60s. Mick Byrne actually has 34 years experience in coaching (but only 23 years coaching in rugby) and at 66 he’s the oldest coach of a top 10 side, and he’s actually doing really well. He goes to show that you can continue to be a good coach well into your 60s, but he seems like an outlier.
So the point is - right now, Les Kiss looks like a pretty reliable option, but 5 years ago so did Eddie Jones and Warren Gatland before they went on to prove that coaches often decline as they get older. If Australia want Kiss as a short term appointment to take over after Schmidt leaves in the summer, I don’t think that would be a terrible idea - but NB wanted Kiss as a long term appointment starting in 2027! That’s a massive risk, given the chance that his aptitude will begin to decline.
Its kind of analagous to how players decline. We know (for example) that a fly-half can still be world class at 38, but we also know that most fly-halves peak in their mid-to-late 20s, so it is generally considered a risk to build your game plan around someone much older than that.
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