The five matches of the 6 Nations Tournament have highlighted the infernal pace imposed on Antoine Dupont as scrum half.
Fabien Galthié obviously has moderate confidence in his replacements. On average, its holders have indeed played more than 70 minutes during the 6 Nations Tournament, according to Midi Olympique. Only the English coach is more demanding with his holders, the latter having remained on average 71.5 minutes on the lawn.
Among the players most in demand by the coach of the XV of France, Antoine Dupont finished the tournament with an average playing time of 76 minutes. An anomaly in the scrum half since Stephen Varney, the Italian number 9, follows with 68 minutes. By comparison, his English and Scottish counterparts only stayed on the pitch for 60 minutes on average.
He wants to be reassuring
This abnormal playing time for a scrum half is explained in particular by the unavailability of Maxime Lucu, who has only played the last two matches against England and Wales. While he had remained on the field for the 80 minutes in the first three matches, the Toulousain gave way to Bordeaux for the last minutes against the English and the Welsh.
The management of Antoine Dupont’s playing time had been at the heart of the discussions after the match against Ireland, which the native of Lannemezan had finished exhausted, by his own admission. Asked about the subject before the match against Scotland, he dismissed the subject with the back of his hand, even ensuring that he “never had as much rest time as this season since I became a pro. »
“The staff of Stade Toulousain made sure to give me recovery time. Unfortunately, it’s not the staff of Stade Toulousain or the Top 14 who make the calendars, it’s more the League and the broadcasters. We are going through this because it is obvious that any staff, in club or in selection, wants to play its best players.he continued, adding: “We train to play as many matches as possible with as much intensity as possible. So we don’t ask ourselves the question of our playing time. We try to be at the top all the time, and we will do the accounts at the end. »
