How are Toulouse bridging the Dupont gap?
Replacing the superstar is the focus for this week’s Jouez: The French Rugby Dispatch
When Antoine Dupont suffered a knee injury in March, 60 million people across France were aghast.
More than 500,000 of them were in Toulouse, with the club captain ruled out of the end-of-season run-in, and Les Rouge et Noir eyeing a 24th Top 14 and a seventh Champions Cup.
Head coach Ugo Mola had the choice to sign a joker medical.
Reports claimed their assistant coach in former New Zealand back-rower Jerome Kaino had contacted ex-All Blacks scrum-half Aaron Smith to head over to Stade Ernest-Wallon as the most glamourous of short-term signings.
Mola, however, decided to stick what he already had and for Sunday’s Champions Cup semi-final at Bordeaux-Begles he had plenty of options.
The former France winger has gone for Dupont’s teenage friend Paul Graou in the No. 9 shirt.
Dupont and the now 27-year-old Graou came through at Auch together and are part of La Meute (the Wolfpack) group of pals alongside Anthony Jelonch and Gregory Alldritt.
Graou has started three of Toulouse’s six games since Dupont’s injury with Japan’s Naoto Saito as his replacement.
As with the club’s tradition they also have plenty of talent graduating the academy, with 19-year-old Simone Darroque and 18-year-old Nathan Llaveria waiting in the wings for their chance.
A fifth option for Mola, which he has used twice this year late in games, is Italy full-back Ange Capuozzo, who has covered half-back with ease, his quick feet a threat around the base of rucks.
Up against Graou et al. will be Bordeaux-Bègles’ experienced Maxime Lucu and with Toulouse’s long list of injuries, UBB have never had a better chance of upsetting French rugby’s title town residents and reaching a first Champions Cup final.
Prediction: Bordeaux-Bègles by three (and Leinster by seven on Saturday)
French Press: The best of the week’s media coverage
After last weekend’s narrowest of losses to England, Les Bleues' head coaches David Ortiz and Gael Mignot de-brief the tournament with Midi Olympique.
Former Fiji head coach Gareth Baber has been linked with the Nice job for next year in l’Equipe.
An interview in Sud-Ouest with professor Christophe Bonnet about Bordeaux-Bègles’ popularity in the city and the surrounding areas. The role of the tram there has helped make Stade Chaban-Delmas the place to be for sporting entertainment.
Jeu de mots, jeu de mains: Gallic rugby vocabulary
Saucisse: noun, sausage. Used to describe wayward passes, which look like the curve of the sausage. Think of ex-Stade Francais flanker Mauro Bergamasco playing for Italy against England in 2009.
À table! Food, drink and anything in between
Chocolatine: The word used in the south-west and a bit more, for pain au chocolat. Think of Bordeaux down, past Toulouse, to the Spanish border then across to the Mediterranean Sea, except Perpignan!