This is the soap opera that has worried France in rugby since Thursday evening. Injured against Namibia on Thursday evening in Marseille and operated on the day after for a broken cheekbone, Blues captain Antoine Dupont has since returned to his village of Castelnau-Magnoac (Hautes-Pyrénées) to relax in the company of his loved ones. But for their part, the staff of the XV of France gave very optimistic and reassuring news on Tuesday about the state of health of their scrum half through the voice of William Servat, co-coach in charge of the French conquest.
“I don’t necessarily have too many doubts about the fact that he will play in the quarter-final (October 14 and 15). It’s more the Italy match (October 6) that questions me, explains the former hooker. Antoine is doing very well today. The operation went very well. He is resting, he will be back with us for training on Sunday, Friday and Saturday being rest days. He will have time to come back. »
“The desire for him to recover as quickly as possible”
“Antoine will join us next weekend. Our first concern is to take care of the players we coach because we love them, continues William Servat. He will resume at his own pace, with the desire that he resumes as quickly as possible in the best case scenario, but while waiting for the medical green light. He will apply very quickly on the match sheets. »
“I’m not a surgeon. This is not a Sunday morning PMU discussion. Doctors spoke with him,” he lashed out to denounce the debates around the danger of returning too early. “We were with Fabien Barthez in training, he told us that he had the same operation in Manchester, he was able to play ten days later. And that was a little while ago, since then there have been further advances in medicine. The hearsay, the people who discuss… Let’s be reasonable, let the specialists talk about these things and respect them a little. »
According to our information from the weekend, a delay of three weeks was the most optimistic forecast before seeing Antoine Dupont again on a rugby field. The player had two plates fitted in Toulouse on Friday evening, and is not due to return to training until Sunday. The Blues must face Italy on Friday October 6 in Lyon, before moving on to a potential quarter-final on the weekend of October 14-15 in Saint-Denis. In the absence of Toulouse, coach Fabien Galthié has two scrum halves, Maxime Lucu and Baptiste Couilloud.
