The greatest double acts roll off the tongue. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Morecambe and Wise, Lennon and McCartney. It\u2019s the same in sport: Lillee and Thomson, Torvill and Dean, Redgrave and Pinsent. After a while their individual talents complement each other so perfectly it becomes hard to mention one without the other.<\/p>\n
Which is what is now happening on the rugby fields of Europe. For Butch and Sundance read Antoine Dupont and Matthieu Jalibert, the creative partnership behind a France team weaving the prettiest of Six Nations<\/a> patterns. Between them \u201cJalipont\u201d are helping to fashion some of the most spectacular attacking rugby anyone could wish for.<\/p>\n And to think people thought it might not work. That the parallel club universes of Toulouse and Bordeaux-Begl\u00e8s, like star-crossed lovers, could never be intertwined. Instead, we could just be witnessing one of the great sporting collaborations, an example of what is possible when two shimmering individual talents mesh together and subvert their egos for the common good.<\/p>\n The 54-12 victory in Cardiff<\/a> on Sunday offered further compelling proof. Dupont has understandably taken a little while to rediscover his top form after his serious knee injury but remains a quality operator at scrum-half. Outside him, Jalibert, finally granted an extended starting run by head coach Fabien Galthi\u00e9, is thriving in the grandmaster flash role at 10 in a team increasingly as watchable as any on the planet.<\/p>\n Of France\u2019s eight tries the pair were involved in six in some shape or form. Dupont\u2019s crafty little reverse flick down the blindside helped to launch the visitors\u2019 early score by \u00c9milien Gailleton and the half-backs then combined smartly to give Jalibert the platform to deliver a perfect cross-kick to Louis Bielle-Biarrey for the second.<\/p>\n France\u2019s Louis Bielle-Biarrey scores his side\u2019s second try of the game against Wales. Photograph: Andrew Matthews\/PA<\/p>\n Subsequently Jalibert scored one himself, delivered an artful little inside ball to put the debutant Fabien Brau-Boirie away for his score and contributed another punted assist, this time to Th\u00e9o Attissogbe. And even though Charles Ollivon\u2019s final try ended up as a close-range lunge, with the clever Baptiste Serin now at scrum-half, who could overlook the delicious little chip and regather by Jalibert earlier in the buildup?<\/p>\n In that moment, as he moved left, slippered the ball delicately over the top with his right boot and accelerated past the flat-footed cover to catch it on the full, the French maestro resembled a player revered by older Welsh audiences. When the muse is with him there is a touch of the Jonathan Davies about the way he first toys with defences before burning them off as well.<\/p>\n When you combine that with Dupont keeping the opposition honest around the rucks, the perpetual motion of Ollivon, France\u2019s collective lineout ability, Thomas Ramos\u2019s goal-kicking and the thrilling ability of Bielle-Biarrey out wide, you have a team that must be a total joy to play in. As their assistant coach, Shaun Edwards, said afterwards: \u201cIf you\u2019re paying to watch them you\u2019ll get your money\u2019s worth.\u201d<\/p>\n