XV of France: “Always hard to see a friend go out suffering”, Dupont’s pain after Ntamack’s injury

The F

“That makes one more player injured, and quite seriously, and above all he seemed to be in pain, so obviously with the closeness I have with Romain, it's always hard to see a friend go out injured and especially in pain,” pointed out the captain of the Blues after the French victory against Fiji (54-17).

“It’s damaging for us, but especially for him, because he had a good start to the season, he felt good, he managed to play one match after another,” explained Dupont.

“It’s part of our game, our sport, the group will have to move forward, the team will have to adapt, as we have always done until now,” he continued.

Exams

Coach Fabien Galthié told him that his opener had “gone to do some tests” and had “felt his shoulder coming out”, shortly after the half-hour mark.

The tricolor hinge had to reorganize after the exit of Toulouse, Maxime Lucu, usually N.9, taking place at the opening. “We had already been working like that for two weeks, these were the rotations we had planned,” explained Dupont.

“It happened quite easily. Maxime was able to work at the 10 position over the last two weeks, and he is also used to playing there with Bordeaux, so it happened quite naturally,” he added.

“They got along well, they controlled the game well with Antoine, they tried to liven it up well, they are players of great talent, experience, who did not panic,” greeted Galthié. “It’s true that we cannot say that we are completely satisfied with our performance, but at the same time, we are starting again, we were a little borrowed, we were reciting at times,” underlined the coach, who quickly looked ahead to Friday’s match against South Africa “which has 13 consecutive matches”.

“I can promise that we will look for something deeply rooted in us,” he said.