By Graham Thomas
As if things were not tough enough for Wales on Friday night – French crowd, the return of Romain Ntamack, and, of course, the irresistible will of Antoine Dupont – comes news of a new opponent.
Dupont – widely regarded as the best rugby player in the world, and by many as the best of all-time – is now fuelled, not just by the Euros paid to him by Toulouse, but also by bitcoin.
He’s the recently appointed ambassador of Bitpanda, the European platform which enables punters to invest in cryptos, ETS, and precious metals.
“Antoine is an iconic figure in French and global rugby and one of the greatest athletes of his generation,” says Eric Demuth, the baseball-capped chief executive of Bitpanda.
“He is a supporter of digital assets and innovation in the finance space, and shares our desire to make the world of finance accessible and secure for everyone.”
So, this, surely must be the plan for Wales – a series of carefully organised sledges towards the French scrum-half, declaring that whatever size bitcoin is now his grasp is about to be made worthless by crypto bankruptcies and their dwindling value.
It’s worth a try.
When you are on a 12-match losing streak and haven’t won a rugby match for 481 days, and your opening match of the Six Nations is away to the hot favourites, then anything is worth a go.
Wales have no-one remotely in the same class of operator as Dupont.
Taulupe Faletau – their one proven world class performer – remains injured, despite fleeting displays for Cardiff this season.
Liam Williams can occasionally dazzle at full-back, though less frequently, it seems, these days, Jac Morgan is a rising force among back row forwards in this tournament, and Tomos Williams has been lighting up matches in English club rugby at Gloucester.
But none of them can hold a candle to Dupont. Now 28 years old, the French captain is maybe approaching his prime and will go into this season with the confidence gained by leading his country to an Olympic gold medal in the sevens last summer.
His influence in that final against Fiji was breath-taking – he saw the victory, shaped it, then served it up – and now, at the same stadium he will be looking to do the same against a Wales team whose own confidence, if you go on statistics, can never have been lower.
When Warren Gatland was asked this week if Dupont was the best player in the world, he replied: “He’s definitely up there for that position because of the influence he has on a game.”
“He’s not the biggest in the world (he’s 5ft 9) when you’re standing next to him but he’s incredibly quick.
“He’s powerful. He’s got great vision. We’ve spoken about him a little bit, but our whole focus cannot be on him.”
Former Ireland and Lions wing Simon Zebo is clearer. Zebo played against a young Dupont when Zebo was at Racing and the No.9 was forging his reputation at Toulouse.
“He’s the best player, in my opinion, to ever play the game, and I think there’s nothing he can’t do,” is the Irishman’s emphatic opinion.
“I’ve seen multiple teams try to plan for him and fail miserably. Yeah, look, he has it all.
“He has the whole skill set, the mentality, the physicality, the speed, everything and anything needed.
“And, you know, if you’re able to detract from one part of his game, he has a number of other facets that he can dip into and cause you problems anywhere.”
Zebo says Racing once had a plan to stop Dupont that involved demanding the nearest opposition player smother him, wherever he was on the pitch.
It didn’t matter if that meant rushing out of a defensive line. Just nail him.
It failed.
That is not to say Dupont is unstoppable or that France are unbeatable.
They may have beaten the All Blacks and Argentina in November, but he has lost 15 times in a French jersey out of 56 caps.
One of those defeats was against Wales at the 2019 World Cup quarter-final, but that was a contest imbalanced after Sebastien Vahaamahina was sent off after 48 minutes for elbowing Aaron Wainwright.
Maybe that’s the course of action Wales need to adopt on Friday – goad the French into ill-discipline and hope they mess up, although it has to be said that France coach Fabien Galthie seems to have ironed out that particular weakness.
Just don’t put all your bitcoins down on stopping Dupont.
