the essential
Toulouse rugby players trampled those of UBB (59-3) this Friday, June 28 in Marseille, in the final of the French championship. An arena that has not always smiled on the Haut-Pyrenees player in the past.
“Thank you for reminding me,” he replied, ironically, when he was reminded on Thursday, on the eve of the final, of his precedents at the Vélodrome. Antoine Dupont had no good memories of this stadium before yesterday’s meeting. But the star was keen to ward off fate and he himself showed his teammates the way to finally create a happy memory in the beautiful Marseille enclosure.
Thanks to an XXL performance punctuated by two tries (his first in a Top14 final), the Stade Toulousain scrum-half allowed the “red and black” to win their 23rd Brennus Shield in a match where UBB was not invited. This is the fourth piece of wood in his personal collection which is starting to fill up.
Cardboard, injury, double, trophy
However, before the match, there was no question of projecting any victory. Out of superstition? Perhaps. Indeed, the OM stadium does not usually smile on the kid from Castelnau-Magnoac. The beginning of these bad memories dates back to November 2022, during a test match of the French XV against South Africa.
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That evening, Antoine Dupont tried to contest an aerial ball from his former Stade Toulousain teammate, Cheslin Kolbe. Slightly late, the Toulouse player hit the winger in the air. The referee’s decision was immediate: exclusion. It was also the only red card Antoine Dupont received during his entire career. A little less than a year later, the Blues returned to the Vélodrome as part of the World Cup to face Namibia. Shortly after half-time, the scrum-half was caught low by a tackle to the head from center Johan Deysel.
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The Blues were stunned, the captain suffered a maxillo-zygomatic fracture that would keep him off the pitch at the worst possible time. He returned with a mask but was unable to prevent his team from losing to South Africa in the quarter-finals.
In strength then in finesse
But yesterday, Dupont finally managed to take his revenge on this cursed lawn. From the 6th minute, it was through a mouse hole that no one had seen that number 9 from Stade Toulousain slipped in to open the scoring and start this final. A strong test, with four opponents on the back. He could have chosen to serve one of his forwards but it takes more to scare the one who will play in the Olympic Games in a month with the French sevens rugby team.
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Moreover, a few minutes later, he would do it again at the end of an incredible Toulouse action, launched in particular by a chistera from Peato Mauvaka. A masterpiece following a touch on which Antoine Dupont is at the conclusion after a subtle kicking game for himself which sent him diving into the in-goal (23rd). A quarter of regulation time had passed and the Vélodrome already felt that the match was over. Intelligent in his positioning in the defensive phases but also in his kicking game (what a clever move in the 2nd to recover a throw-in in the Girondins’ 22m!), he seemed to have control over the entire game, without ever losing himself. panic.
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Obviously, not everything was perfect for the Toulouse captain. Blocked in his kicking game (16), he then rushed 5m from the Bordeaux line and dropped the ball (26) and missed another kick which ended in a dead ball (29)… But who will hold it against him? Ugo Mola said it, “we only remember the winner”. From last night’s match, we will also remember that Antoine Dupont scored twice and that the curse of the Vélodrome is now nothing more than a bad memory.
