To reach a summit, you have to climb the first paths, select the right path to follow, find the best holds. Without stumbling, without making mistakes. With strength, endurance and lucidity. His Everest, the XV of France knows him: the world title, the only one missing from his list, after a home competition (September 8 – October 28).
The ascent of the Dupont band to this summit began in 2020, when Fabien Galthié took the lead of the blue rope. England vice-world champion swept away from the start, the New Zealand pet peeve defeated the following year, the Grand Slam and the South African world champions on the list last year. In three years, these Blues have taken on the costume of favorites and are climbing a step ahead of their World Cup.
“The World Cup, we don’t think about it at all, it’s still very far away,” swears Gaël Fickou. The most experienced of these Blues, from the top of his 28 years and 75 selections, knows that there are still steep passages where the fall is always possible. This shock, Saturday at the Aviva Stadium, is one. Perhaps the most complex challenge to take up for this XV of France, which has forgotten the taste of defeat for a year and a half and fourteen games.
“We can feel the excitement rising in Dublin”
In front of them, the Irish mountains are enough to make you shudder. Despite the frantic pace of the XV of France, that of Clover seems a little notch above. In the ranking, certainly a bit anecdotal, of the best nation in the world according to World Rugby. On the last impression left, too, on the first day of this Six Nations Tournament. A clear victory folded in half an hour in Cardiff for Clover, a narrow success in Rome for unruly Roosters.
This shock at the top in Dublin between the two best current nations in the world (a first in the Tournament) will also be the first of the Blues Galthié version in an Aviva Stadium full to the brim, with 51,000 excited fans (their victory on Irish soil in 2021 was played behind closed doors). Between the relentless mechanics of the Irish and the ability of the French to defend and score at any time, the face-to-face makes your mouth water.
A final shock, therefore. More than a final before the letter of this Tournament – even if Antoine Dupont denies it. “There will be others after, and all of them will prepare us and lead us to this World Cup”, relativizes the captain. More than just a Six Nations match anyway. “You said it all, agrees Raphaël Ibanez, the French manager. You can feel the excitement rising here in Dublin. We put ourselves in the position of challenger. But I don’t expect hell. This stadium can also be our paradise. The public is already in 7th heaven.