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Super Rugby champion weighs in on the Antoine Dupont 'GOAT' debate

Antoine Dupont and Aaron Smith squaring off at the 2023 Rugby World Cup. Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images

Former Crusaders halfback and six-time Super Rugby champion Bryn Hall has had his say on Antoine Dupont’s claim for the greatest of all-time tag.

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Having played with the likes of Richie Mo’unga, Kieran Read and Sam Whitelock in the historic Crusaders dynasty under Scott Robertson, as well as Toulouse assistant coach Jerome Kaino at the Blues, Hall has seen up close the careers of some of rugby’s global icons.

When assessing the incredible performances of his halfback counterparts in the Champions Cup final over the weekend, Hall had high praise for both No. 9s in the contest.

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However, as high as the 32-year-old’s praise for Leinster’s Jamison Gibson-Park was, it was Toulouse star Atoine Dupont who had the Shizuoka Blue Revs nine the most amazed.

“There’s just so many highlights that you could point out for Dupont; I think it was (Dan) Sheehan who made that big linebreak, obviously (Dupont) had the ball stripped from him but he comes all the way back, Sheehan almost scores the try and Dupont gets the steal just five metres from the line,” Hall said on the Aotearoa Rugby Pod.

“There’s so many things that Dupont can do very, very well. Defensively, on attack, kicking; he’s your full threat.

“I could arguably say when its all said and done, if he gets a World Cup win in the next cycle, hopefully not for the Kiwis, but for the French, you’d have to put him down as possibly being the best player that’s ever played.

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“He has to be in that argument with the way he is able to play at the international level and obviously with Toulouse, and we haven’t even touched on sevens. He’s probably going to go and win a gold medal at the Olympics.

“That’s another great thing about Dupont, is that he hasn’t even been in there full time this year with Toulouse, he’s been playing sevens. He’s had the opportunity to go play a few SVNS circuit games.

“So, they’re two phenomenal players. Dupont got the win and that’s obviously one up on Jamison, but Jamison is there or there about, him and Dupont are two of the best players in the world.”

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The Frenchman’s performance in the final has inspired plenty of debate in the days since, especially following RugbyPass TV’s postgame reaction show where hosts Jim Hamilton and Bernard Jackman put the GOAT question forward.

The two former internationals shared Hall’s admiration for the halfback, even going as far as to say Dupont deserves the title already at just 27 years of age.

However, days later Hamilton posed the same question to his Rugby Pod co-host, former England international Andy Goode, who had a different conclusion.

“I’m probably going to go, Dan Carter,” Goode said before admitting his bias for No. 10s and clarifying his answer is dependent on the era of the game in question.

“I have got a bit of bias because he is a 10 and I watched him play, watched him really closely, saw how slick he was with everything he did – he could do everything as a 10.

“And I see it in Dupont, completely see everything. He can tackle, he can turnover, he can sit people down, he can bang, he can make breaks, he can kick off both feet, his tactical game is ridiculous. He has got absolutely everything.

“Is he the greatest of all time? He’s in the conversation. Different generations. Jonah Lomu was the greatest of all time in my opinion. He single-handedly turned the game professional and probably gave us the careers that we had by accelerating professionalism from the ’95 World Cup and all that stuff and who he was.

“But that’s a different generation of player and it depends on what generation you are talking about because the game has evolved massively over the last four, five, six years when Dan Carter hasn’t played, Richie McCaw hasn’t played so the game has changed immensely.

“So it’s hard to say and people will say he [Dupont] hasn’t won a World Cup, all this stuff. Dan Carter has won one himself. He was involved in another one, so he has got two World Cup winners medals. Richie McCaw was captain for the two. You could go, Beauden Barrett, he’s won one. How good is he as a player?

“But I get the clamour for it. I just struggle to say he [Dupont] is the greatest of all time when he is still playing and he has not won a World Cup which potentially could define people.”

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Comments

3 Comments
C
CO 174 days ago

There is really two different ways of critiquing this question and really two seperate categories.

The first and most obvious is which player would you entirely clone for a team, I'm talking if you had to pick one player and that player is in every position including the bench….

The second criteria would be the player with all the skills, undoubtedly Dupont belongs in that category as does Dan Carter.

The key difference is Dan Carter has two world cup winners medals and Dupont has none. So it's a hard one to claim that Dupont exceeds DC.

The first category he'd also not be that guy and neither would Dan Carter.

The first category is in reality the true decider of who is the greatest rugby player of all time.

My pick would be approximately six foot four, 119kg’s and allegedly did the 100 metres in 10.7 seconds. That being Jonah Lomu.

However thinking about who could realistically have a go at matching up to a team of Lomus also highlights the importance of size followed by speed.

So a clone team of Eben Etzebeth perhaps, physically bigger at six foot eight and 126kg he would be a handful for the Lomu team.

The Etzebeths would need to seriously slow the game down to have a chance

j
jacques 175 days ago

Dupont is simply the best. Been following the game for 40 years and have not seen a player as good as him.

r
rory 175 days ago

It all depends on era and there is no way anyone can be labelled as the GOAT. I saw Gareth Edwards at his best, so too many players of that era, Colin Meads in the 70’s, Hugo Porta in the 80’s, Danie Gerber in the 80’s/90’s just to mention some. Great French, Irish, Australian and even Scottish players of the past that would be considered. Typical of the times we live in every second prodigy is the next GOAT. Nobody can be that as different requirements of the different eras determined different outcomes.
Tennis good example. Can one compare a brilliant Laver to a Federer/Nadal/etc. Now Alcaraz is going to be the new GOAT and then he loses and the media looks for a new one.
Dupont and others be the best of the day but there is no GOAT. THEY ARE/WERE ALL JUST VERY GOOD. Bok supporter just saying

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JW 1 hour ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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