France captain Antoine Dupont holds no grudges over the incident in which he suffered a serious knee injury as he prepares to make his long-awaited international comeback in Thursday’s Guinness Six Nations opener against Ireland.<\/p>\n
The scrum-half spent more than nine months on the sidelines after rupturing cruciate ligaments in Les Bleus\u2019 dominant 42-27 win in Dublin last March.<\/p>\n
He was hurt during a ruck clearout when Ireland\u2019s Tadhg Beirne fell on his right leg after being pushed by team-mate Andrew Porter, prompting strong criticism of the pair from France head coach Fabien Galthie.<\/p>\n
Dupont, widely-regarded as the world\u2019s best player, returned to club action with Toulouse in late November and is poised to lead his country into the championship curtain-raiser in Paris.<\/p>\n
“Physically, I feel very well,” said the 29-year-old. “As I said from the beginning of my comeback, I found very good sensations so I am happy to have been able to have several games before the opening of the Six Nations.<\/p>\n
“For last year, I think it\u2019s an accident.<\/p>\n
“Both players sent me messages on Instagram after the game and I said, ‘No worries, I know that it was an accident, it happens sometimes\u2019.”<\/p>\n
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Reigning champions France are strong favourites to launch their title defence with victory over Andy Farrell\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
“When you play Ireland, it\u2019s always a tough game, especially during the Six Nations,” said Dupont.<\/p>\n
“We expect them to be at their best level and we know we will have to play our best rugby if we want to win tomorrow and start this competition in a good way.”<\/p>\n
France boss Galthie raised some eyebrows ahead of the tournament by leaving former captain Gregory Alldritt, centre Gael Fickou and wing Damian Penaud out of his squad.<\/p>\n
The hosts appeared to be in relaxed mood during Wednesday afternoon\u2019s captain\u2019s run at Stade de France.<\/p>\n
“In the past we had to play several games without big names and our young players are playing very well in the Top 14, so it\u2019s very well for them to be on the team,” said Dupont.<\/p>\n
“It represents the team well to be focused but relaxed. We\u2019ve still got time until tomorrow night so it\u2019s important to enjoy every moment, to enjoy the Stade de France, to enjoy the captain\u2019s run.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ll have enough time tomorrow to be focused on the game.”<\/p>\n
Follow a live blog on France v Ireland in the Six Nations on Thursday from 8.10pm. Listen to live commentary on RT\u00c9 Radio 1. \u2003\u2003<\/p>\n
Watch France v Ireland in the Under-20 Six Nations on Saturday from 7.50pm on the RT\u00c9 News Channel and RT\u00c9 Player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France captain Antoine Dupont holds no grudges over the incident in which he suffered a serious knee injury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-281122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}