French rugby needs some Dupont magic to blow away clouds of scandal | Andy Bull

Yesterday at 01:21 PM

Return of inspirational captain will make a difference on the pitch, but taint of player misconduct is hard to erase

Antoine Dupont doesn't do many interviews. "I don't necessarily like to talk about myself," he has said, "to do yet another interview where I talk about what I've done, how I've played, and how my game has evolved; honestly, it tires me more than anything else these days." But after France's last grand slam, he did sit down to record a podcast with the entrepreneur Alexandre Mars, which ended with a game of word association. "Rugby?" Mars says. "Ball," Dupont replies. "Toulouse?" "Rugby"; "Galthié?" "Glasses"; "Travel?" "Family"; "Idol?" "Michalak"; "France 2023?" "Victory"; "Paris 2024?" "Victory."

Three years later, Dupont has notched up one of those last two achievements. Last summer he led the French sevens team to victory in the Paris Olympics in – shut your eyes and picture it – one of the great seven-minute stretches of sport, with two tries and an assist as they came back from 7-0 to beat Fiji, who had never lost a match in the Olympics, and win France's first gold medal.