France cling on for furious victory against South Africa after Dupont sizzles
The Guardian ·
France 21-19 South Africa Scrum-half key in thriller full of twists and turns The French had been waiting 21 years to see their team beat the Springboks at the Stade de France. In that time the team turned through successive generations and multiple iterations, risen, fallen and risen again. Now, at last, they have done it. Only by two, 21-19, and hell, they were hanging on by the fingertips for the final 30 minutes, but they have, at last, beaten the best team in the world in their national stadium. And after all that they did it with a team that had barely won a lineout, lost almost every scrum and which was missing a host of players. What they did have, however, was Antoine Dupont. No fly-half? No problem. Earlier in the week their head coach, Fabien Galthié, had dismissed the idea that he and his opposite number, Rassie Erasmus, were playing mindgames with each other as “comic-book stuff”. Turns out this was just another bluff. Galthié had said Dupont was going to start at fly-half and, sure, he wore No 10 on his back, but he played the game in his usual position. It was his understudy Maxime Lucu who switched positions to play first receiver. Continue reading...