the development of Antoine Dupont

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Victorious over Japan then the All Blacks, the XV of France reconnected with the Stade de France during this autumn 2024 tour and finally seems to be part of the dynamic which should carry it until 2027. Was this success against New Zealand a means of definitively turn the page on the 2023 World Cup ? The captain Antoine Dupont replied.

Antoine Dupont affirms it: the World Cup is digested

We ultimately talked very little about it, perhaps because no one wanted to make too big of an event, perhaps so as not to minimize the deadlines which marked the Blues’ season in the meantime: this autumn tour was a mine of nothing, the first appearance of a “complete” French XV since the 2023 World Cup.

That is to say a French XV without a few injuries, certainly, but not its captain who returned from his adventure at 7. A sort of return to current affairs therefore, a year and wheelbarrows after the defeat in the quarter-finals. final against South Africa. The opportunity to definitively exorcise these old demons?

“No, I don’t think we see it like that at all. This World Cup, we don’t talk about it anymore, you a little more. But honestly, we are on a completely different dynamic and we are looking towards the future, towards what awaits us. Winning matches like that is always important. Founder, as you said, it remains a step in our path which is still long, but which is important”, affirms Antoine Dupont.

Self-sacrifice rather than panache

Without necessarily having had this fateful quarter-final in mind, the Blues nevertheless had to display all their mental resources in order to achieve a success which for more than 30 minutes looked like it was going to escape them. By relying on a defense that had failed them against the Boks at the time.

“At international level, you have to be able to win in every way. This is what we were able to do today. Without the ball, we had very good defense and we were able to score on turnovers, on the few opportunities we had. It’s important to know how to win like that too. We often see the state of mind of a team in its defense, in all the efforts without the ball that the players can make during the game,” believes the scrum half.

Before concluding: “I don’t know how many tackles we made but it was perhaps the match where we defended the most. And we can still see in the last action that we still had this appetite, this thirst for victory. »

A French XV resolutely turned towards the future. The 2027 World Cup for the long haul. For the short term, it will first be a match against the Pumas next Friday.

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