Antoine Dupont was taken to hospital
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France have sustained a major blow to their hopes of a home Rugby World Cup triumph after captain Antoine Dupont suffered a suspected facial fracture.
Dupont was taken to hospital after leaving the field after a head-to-head collision during the second half of the hosts’ record win over Namibia.
The scrum-half, regarded by most as the best player in the world, was hit by the top of Johan Deysel’s head, with the Namibia centre’s yellow card upgraded to red on review.
While the incident happened early in the second half, Fabien Galthie’s decision to keep his star man on despite a sizeable 54-point halftime advantage may be scrutinised with Dupont now expected to miss at least some of France’s potential run to the final.
“There’s a suspicion of a crack or fracture in his jaw,” Galthie said after the 96-0 thrashing. “He’s gone for tests. We’ll wait for the results before moving forward.
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“You can’t take 14 players off at half-time. Our plan was to bring off one, three and five at half-time, then the rest at the 55th minute. The aim was to give everyone some game-time and not sit back for a month. The players wanted and needed to play.”
Maxime Lucu has been Dupont’s primary back-up in the build-up to this World Cup, though Baptiste Couilloud has also impressed of late.
France have already lost Romain Ntamack, their captain’s half-back partner for club and country, for the tournament after the fly half suffered a serious knee injury in a warm-up fixture against Scotland.
Galthie was boosted, however, by the return to action of Cyril Baille and Jonathan Danty in the Namibia win.
With France at close to full-strength and Namibia resting a couple of key players ahead of their meeting with Uruguay next week, the hosts ran riot in Marseille, with Damian Penaud scoring a hat-trick.
Penaud is now just five tries short of Serge Blanco’s record tally for France’s men.
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