{"id":474315,"date":"2026-03-14T00:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/474315\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T00:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:21:08","slug":"antoine-dupont-reveals-the-reason-behind-frances-murrayfield-malaise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/474315\/","title":{"rendered":"Antoine Dupont reveals the reason behind France’s Murrayfield malaise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

France\u2019s Grand Slam ambitions may have come crashing down at Murrayfield but captain Antoine Dupont<\/a> has warned England<\/a> they are still intent on defending their crown.<\/p>\n

Destiny is in Les Bleus\u2019 hands knowing that a bonus-point victory in the climax to \u2018Super Saturday\u2019 would almost certainly clinch the Guinness Six Nations<\/a> title thanks to their commanding points difference.<\/p>\n

Dupont insists they have recovered from the shattering 50-40 defeat by Scotland<\/a> in round four knowing a great prize is within reach.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always a tough week, especially coming off the performances that we did, but we\u2019ve been through this before and there\u2019s still something at stake,\u201d Dupont said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re capable of winning the tournament so it\u2019s been easy easy to quickly switch gears and get our motivation back because there really is a great objective to achieve.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we win the tournament, we\u2019ll forget a lot of what happened before, whether it was the good start or the disappointing match in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you\u2019ve won, all you remember is the winner\u2019s name and the trophy. Maybe when we look back in 10 years, we\u2019ll obviously regret that a Grand Slam is always better.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut a tournament (win) is still a title and it\u2019s already so hard to win that. It would be incredible to win it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve definitely felt a good energy this week. More focus, I\u2019d say, compared to the week of the Scotland match where there was a lot of good spirits but perhaps a drop in concentration, a drop in determination.\u201d<\/p>\n

England are in danger of finishing the Six Nations with just one win for the first time in their history, but Dupont refuses to be seduced by their recent form heading into \u2018Le Crunch\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou always have to be wary of England. We know how difficult this tournament is. We know that from one week to the next teams can be completely different,\u201d Dupont said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEngland are a very experienced team with some very strong individual players who know how to rise to the occasion in big matches.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo even if they don\u2019t have the tournament title at stake, this match still has a lot at stake for them and I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France\u2019s Grand Slam ambitions may have come crashing down at Murrayfield but captain Antoine Dupont has warned England…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-474315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}