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The World Cup message World Rugby have for Sexton, Dupont, Kolisi

(Photo by Anne- Christine Poujoulat/AFP via Getty Images)

There are now just 100 days to go before the 2023 Rugby World Cup kicks off with a humdinger of an opening fixture, the host nation France taking on the All Blacks in Paris on September 8.

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Every tournament needs its stars and amidst the hub-bub of this week’s midweek celebrations in France with ex-Springboks prop Tendai Mtawarira flying in with the Webb Ellis Cup, World Rugby CEO Alan Gilpin delivered a message about some of the stars who will be looking to shine in September and October.

“What an incredible player,” said Gilpin about French skipper Dupont, who will go into the tournament as the Guinness Six Nations player of the championship for the third time in four years. “So much has been said and written about it and it’s not for me to add to that – but he is a superstar.

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“We are definitely a sport that has put team first. It is so embedded in the values of the sport that we talk across the world at grassroots level but notwithstanding team first in what is probably the ultimate team sport, everyone loves to see a superstar and that is what you have in Dupont and Siya Kolisi and some of the other stars we are going to see in the tournament. We absolutely want guys to be fit and firing at their best.

“It was interesting seeing Johnny Sexton prowling the sidelines at the European Champions final because you want Johnny Sexton to be fit and to be ready. The same way with Dupont and with Kolisi and any number of others. This will be rugby’s biggest-ever stage.

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“This will be the most watched, most eagerly anticipated rugby event ever, and for those players and individuals who have earned the right to be there, and in many cases had an incredible career to this point, you want them to be there for themselves.

“They deserve that stage in the spotlight but also to make sure that we have the most competitive and compelling tournament that we can have. They are all important and probably none more so than Dupont in terms of what that means for France to be at their absolute best, but the French have just that great depth in that team that it is the envy of the world at the moment.”

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Host nations doing well at Rugby World Cup is always a good thing to enhance the atmosphere of the tournament. What does Gilpin make of the French renaissance under Fabien Galthie? “It’s hugely important to the build-up to any tournament that the national team is competitive and they certainly are that.

“We have got a French public that is immensely proud of a really, really spectacular current French national team, and we know we are going to have an incredibly competitive tournament. We open the tournament with an absolute blockbuster in terms of France-New Zealand and there is huge excitement around that team in general and what it might achieve.”

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2 Comments
K
Kenneth 539 days ago

There is no message for Jonny and Kolisi,but only speaking about Depont and France,France,France heading of this article is misleading.

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J
JW 3 hours 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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