The displacement of the Toulouse stadium in South Africa, on Saturday, to face the Sharks will allow Antoine Dupont to end an anomaly of almost eight years …
This is the big meeting of this start of the year. Pending the opening of the Six Nations Tournament at the end of the month, the Toulouse stadium has an appointment this Saturday with the Sharks for a shock to the tunes of revenge, a little more than a year after the quarter-final lost by the XV of France against the Bocks during the 2023 World Cup.
Antoine Dupont and all the Blues of the Toulouse stadium are preparing to find Eben Etzebeth, Siya Kolisi, Bongi Mbonambi, Vincent Koch or Ox Nché, this meeting will also be worth a tricolor half of memisphere. The former Castres no longer played there since his first test with the XV of France during the Blues tour in South Africa in the summer of 2017.
Next meeting in 2027?
Since this 37-15 defeat at the Kings Park Stadium in Durban, the Antre des Sharks, during which he had entered the last half hour, Antoine Dupont only played in Europe and Japan, theater of the 2019 World Cup. Consequence of the agreement between the French Rugby Federation and the National Rugby League that is worth to compose without its premium players summer.
Next July, the Blues will therefore have to do without Antoine Dupont, nor the other big names in the XV of France during the tour in New Zealand, on July 5 in Dunedin, on July 12 in Wellington, and on July 19 in Hamilton. The next meeting of the Lannemezan native in the southern hemisphere could therefore only intervene in 2027, on the occasion of the World Cup in Australia.
