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The 124-cap great Dan Biggar rates ahead of Carter and Dupont as his toughest opponent
By Josh Raisey
Wales great Dan Biggar has rated former Ireland captain and his British and Irish Lions team-mate Johnny Sexton as the toughest player he has ever faced.
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The Toulon fly-half joined Mike Bubbins for the BBC’s ‘Scrum V Top 5’ recently where he gave a countdown of his toughest ever opponents.
Former Dragons flanker Nic Cudd took fifth place, with Fiji centre Josua Tuisova – who had a huge part to play in Fiji’s recent win over Wales – taking fourth place.
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Despite hailing him as “the best rugby player to have ever played the game,” France captain Antoine Dupont only took third place as his toughest opponent, although he was effusive in his praise for the Frenchman.
“For me to say perhaps in 20, 25, 30 years’ time that I played against Antoine Dupont,” Biggar said. “To say I played six, seven or eight times against him, beat teams that Antoine Dupont played in, lost to teams Antoine Dupont played in, I think now you don’t quite realise it when you are playing against him, but he can do everything.
“He’s a once-in-a-generation player.
“When you are analysing Toulouse, the head coach made a point, he said ‘we’re not even going to analyse Dupont because you can’t.'”
The 115-cap fly-half described another opponent, Dan Carter, as another “once-in-a-generation player,” but the All Black could only make second place in the countdown.
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“How easy he made the game look,” the Welshman said of the Kiwi, “for me, that was the biggest thing. He looked like he had all the time in the world on the ball.
“This is a guy who could kill you and take the game away from you in the space of five, 10 minutes. If you’re five per cent off your game and he’s somewhere near 60 per cent off his game, he’s going to absolutely crucify you.
“He had to be in for what he’s achieved in the game and just how difficult he was to play against.”
While citing the likes of Owen Farrell, George Ford, David Pocock and Michael Hooper as contenders to make the list, with Springboks No 10 Handre Pollard being the “most unlucky”, Biggar crowned Sexton as the toughest player he ever played against.
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While he did specify that he thinks Dupont is the greatest player, Sexton topped the list not only because he was Biggar’s direct adversary but also due to the number of battles they had.
Both players’ careers aligned nicely with one another, with both bringing their international careers to a close at the end of last year’s World Cup. While they would have faced each other dozens of times for club and country, it was only when Biggar was Sexton’s team-mate for the Lions that he realised how good the 124-cap great was.
“The reason I’ve gone for this player is the amount of battles I’ve had with him over the years,” he said. “The longevity of his career, the success that he’s had and just what you see on the field being completely different to what you get off the field. The relationship I’ve got with him is actually really, really good.
“Why I’ve put him at number one is because of the amount of detail, the amount of preparation he puts in to every game. After touring with him in 2017, I saw that first-hand, it was just off the charts and it blew my mind. The amount of time he spent on the laptops, the amount of time he was perfecting his kicking, his passing, it was next level.
“The whole time we played Ireland, the only thing we generally spoke out was how do we get ar Sexton. How do we stop Sexton running the game? How do we stop Sexton dictating play? The variety of his game was just brilliant in terms of short pass, long pass, attacking kicking. He was tough, the amount of injuries he picked up.
“My first Six Nations start was against Ireland in 2013 and he gave me his match shirt and didn’t ask for mine in return. He just said ‘keep yours’ so that was a really nice touch. He’s an all-round brilliant guy but so, so tough on the field. Argumentative, fractious, niggly – I saw so much of myself in him.
“You look at his career and the success he’s had with Leinster, Ireland and the Lions, he’s not the flashiest of 10s, this guy is consistency like you’ve never seen it in terms of a seven-and-a-half or an eight out of 10 every game.”
Put that in your book.
So, the player that I know over better players I've watched run right past/around me. Right