LONG READ Top 100: Why Antoine Dupont is the best player in the world

Compiling a list of the world’s top 100 players is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it’s every rugby fan’s dream to play selector to the most gifted athletes on the planet but a curse because you do so in the knowledge pretty much every fan will have a different version of their own list and think you’re one sandwich short of a picnic for not agreeing with them. I should add, this how it should be. If you take away that one-eyed, patriotic bias, you take away fandom. That rivalry, competitive fervour and one-upmanship that draws bumper crowds to the elite end of the game.

I’d love to tell you I had a top-secret mathematical equation cooked up in an underground bunker by scientists bedecked in white coats that spat out the definitive list, but of course that’s simply not possible. The list is subjective and if you were to hand the same assignment to 100 journalists, let alone thousands of fans, it is unlikely you would come up with a consistent selection.

Now to back up that gut feel that you get when witnessing greatness, namely our No 1 Antoine Dupont – more of which later – RugbyPass enlisted the help of statistics gurus Opta, to bolster the list with hard data. We threw in quotes on the players in question by the coaches, colleagues and experts who know them best and of course, we enlisted a troupe of journalists with over a 100 years of experience and ‘boots on the ground’ nous to form an argument as to why the players were chosen.

Unsurprisingly, there was a plethora of players who made the initial list and were culled throughout the Autumn Nations Series after consideration. Players who dropped like a climber on a rockface, who shall remain nameless, and players such as Louis Bielle-Biarrey, Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii and Wallace Sititi who found their stars in the ascendance as the November narrative crystalised.

Take for instance, Sititi. In the flesh, his performance against England was one of the most jaw-dropping displays this writer has seen at Twickenham and the Chief looks to have a stellar career in front of him.

Watch Tom Wright hoover up an astonishing 245m against a bedraggled Welsh side and you wonder what Eddie Jones’ rationale was for omitting him from a World Cup a year ago.

Some players have a lower placing due to injury, with Dan Sheehan and Romain Ntamack prime examples, and others suffered from their time out of the Test spotlight – Richie Mo’unga springs to mind.

There were countless other factors to consider. Clearly reputation couldn’t be discarded and it is no surprise the world’s No 1 team, South Africa, had the highest percentage of individuals in the list – 18 – and 2024’s strugglers Wales saw only three players feature.

Raw ability and x-factor was another part of the jigsaw. When you see RG Snyman loping into contact, freeing his arms and pulling off a barely believable offload you have to applaud open-mouthed. Likewise, when the ageless Beauden Barrett, without breaking stride, scoops the ball up with one hand before counter-attacking you have to doff your cap. The athleticism, balance and explosivity of Immanuel Feyi-Waboso carrying like an Exocet is a sight to behold. Likewise, the raw power of maul-wreckers Will Skelton or Emmanuel Meafou demands inclusion.

A lesser factor was more intangible. Leadership, charisma and that certain je ne sais quoi are less easy to track as a data-set but they matter. Siya Kolisi may coast from club to club in civilian clothing but pull on a Springbok shirt and he wears a cape as a leader of men.

In compiling a list, it is a moot point to consider whether the piano shifters are unfairly overlooked for the piano players. The work of the tight-five forwards, and especially props often go unseen, and as such, are undervalued. With Ox ‘salads don’t win scrums’ Nche a poster boy – he, at least, makes the top 10. Indeed, measuring the influence of Tyrel Lomax, who locks down scrums, against Kurt-Lee Arendse, who scores tries to win games, is almost impossible and reinforces why rugby is the ultimate team game. All over the list, there are arguments which would rage long into the night over a brandy and coke, and that is what you should expect from a loyal, passionate fanbase.

This brings us to our top 10, which is loaded with Springboks but spearheaded by an enigmatic Frenchman. What is heartening, is that the top two players in the world (by our reckoning, anyway) are two of the smallest men in Test rugby. That is simply extraordinary in a game routinely measured by size and strength. Cheslin Kolbe and Dupont are generational players, but Dupont nudges it by dint of the position he plays on the pitch and the influence and belief he can exert on others.

Kolbe is a magician, who can throw Luke-Littler arrows at a lineout, bounce second-rows with his almost superhuman power, slide in at 10 and kick goals. This is on top of his primary job to leave defenders flat-footed in the wide channels and cross the whitewash.

To me, however, it would seem churlish not to award the No 1 position to Dupont. The first game I remember watching was in 1981, three years after the iconic Sir Gareth Edwards last pulled on a Welsh shirt. In the French captain, you have a player ready to challenge if not usurp him as the greatest of all time. Those assumptions can be ratified when Dupont retires – which is some way off, given the Toulousain has just turned 28.

In the NBA, they have a metric called  ‘value over replacement player (VORP)’, to gauge a player’s influence compared to his understudy. With no disrespect to Maxime Lucu, you have to ask yourself the following questions and whether they could be applied to any other player in world rugby.

Why were France so maddeningly inconsistent during the 2024 Six Nations? Answer. Dupont wasn’t playing.

Would France, given how little heritage they have in sevens, have had any chance of claiming Olympic gold in Paris without the little magician? It’s highly doubtful.

In the Autumn Nations Series, would France have had the belief to hold on against the All Blacks without Dupont on the field? It’s a bit of a stretch.

It’s not like Dupont hasn’t delivered domestically this year. He lifted the Bouclier de Brennus and the Champions Cup this year with Toulouse, player of the match in the EPCR London final. After recuperating post-Olympics, he returned to the fray in October with a nonchalant 11-minute hat-trick. Dupont has got to the point where if he doesn’t do something otherworldly in a game he’s deemed off colour.

Only last week against Ulster, Dupont was unplayable. He tore up the record book with four try assists, one a glorious crossfield kick for Ange Capuozzo, made the most carries, beat four defenders, scored a try and engineered two 50-22s. His skillset is obscene. He can kick brilliantly with both feet, whether it’s a box-kick with the perfect hang-time, a 50m exit to within inches of the touchline, or a deft chip over the top of the defence. He can offload sumptuously, skip down the wing, outpacing back-three players, haul attackers into touch, metres from the touchline, as he memorably did to Mack Hansen, and even slot in at fly-half late on in the game. Hell, he’s even privately said he’d like to play 13 – and you don’t know whether he’s joking or not.

Indeed, when he’s pictured alongside Lionel Messi, you don’t think, ‘there’s a fan speaking to the best footballer on the planet’, you understand game recognises game, such is his elevated status in the sporting pantheon.

But can he do it on a wet night in Dunedin, many All Blacks fans will chime, or at altitude in Ellis Park against the mighty Springboks? He doesn’t have to, but you’d be a fool to bet against him.

Félicitations Antoine, tu es tout simplement magnifique.