LONG READ Will the withdrawal of the ‘top 20’ devalue France’s tour of New Zealand?

Imagine for a moment, Antoine Dupont’s rugby bucket list. Gold medal at the Olympic Games – tick. A World Cup winner’s medal – to do. Somewhere between those two, but considerably closer to the summit represented by World Cup victory, would be a series triumph in New Zealand.

Unfortunately, it now seems ‘the best player in the world’ may never get the chance to sample that unique experience. The recent announcement by France head coach Fabien Galthié that the top 20 French players are likely to be withdrawn from the 2025 tour of the shaky isles means Dupont will never get to savour New Zealand, nor New Zealand enjoy the full array of his talents.

Without the royal seal provided by a winning tour of one of the two greatest rugby nations on the planet [New Zealand and South Africa], Dupont can never advance from ‘best player in the world’ to ‘greatest of all time’. Gareth Edwards did both, and therein lies the legitimacy of his own claim to be greatest rugby athlete of the amateur era. Edwards never shirked a challenge.

In June, Galthié revealed the grand plan to French newspaper L’Equipe:

“We follow 100 players but we have identified a ‘premium’ group of 20.

“We want them to have consistent development. We want to work hand-in-hand with the league and the clubs. Our goal is for players to be able to give the best of themselves in the French team, but also in-club. We want to go further [nationally], while taking into account the challenges of the clubs.

“Players will benefit from four mandatory weeks off, and four weeks without matches. We built on trust while adjusting the management of the international season by choosing to rest our ‘premium’ players during the summer tours.

“It was a first step. We want to go even further which will mean we will go on tour in the summer of 2025 in New Zealand without our ‘premium’ players. It’s been like this for four years. Why change strategy? Because we’re travelling to the All Blacks? You have to be consistent.”

The undercurrent to Galthié’s comments is the universal theme of co-operation [or otherwise] between club and country. France features the longest domestic season of any in the world – 26 regular season games plus three potential knockout rounds – which means a top club such as Stade Toulousain could be playing from the middle of August until the end of the following June – a 10-and-a-half-month season. Compared to that gruelling marathon, Super Rugby Pacific seems a nonchalant dawdle, a brief four-month jog in the park.

With the broadcasting deals brokered by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby [LNR] leading the game financially, and two fully professional tiers in place, club rugby is the priority in France, and the union – the Fédération Française de Rugby [FFR] – has work around its needs. In New Zealand it is precisely the opposite, with the All Blacks brand all-powerful.

The domestic agreement between LNR and FFR is a neat work-around of World Rugby’s regulation 9, which is designed to ensure the availability of top players for all international windows. But it does nothing for NZR, who recently posted a loss of NZD $8.9m back in June. No Dupont means less public interest in the tour, less marketability and ultimately smaller revenue streams.

Down south, the view will be that two contrasting models of the game have collided, and the international-led version has come out the loser. Earlier in the week, the two-headed French governance hydra had announced no players who played in the Top 14 final would be considered either to tour New Zealand, or in the same July touring window in 2026.

If those finalists turn out to be Stade Toulousain and Union Bordeaux-Bègles as it was last season, that would not only mean no Dupont, but four of the top five half-backs in France going AWOL – Dupont and Maxime Lucu at nine, Romain Ntamack and Matthieu Jalibert at 10. It would deny New Zealand supporters the opportunity to see quicksilver flyers such as Damian Penaud and Louis Bielle-Biarrey in action, and hookers Peato Mauvaka and Julien Marchand, and 6ft 8ins, 145kg colossus Emmanuel Meafou in the second row.

A tour without such luminaries cannot grip the imagination of the hosts in the same way, whatever the spin. Last Wednesday, the FFR explained the absence of France’s top players as follows.

“[It is] part of a preparation cycle for the 2027 World Cup, with an approach focused on managing the most in-demand players and on the gradual construction of the squad.

“In the first stage, 28 available players will be selected after the Top 14 play-offs [the first knockout round of three] to prepare for a first France Development match on the weekend of the Top 14 semi-finals [second round].

“This group will then be completed by players from the clubs that lost in the semi-finals, in order to reach a total of 42 players. The finalists of the Top 14 [round three] will not be selected for these international periods.”

That is not the way the presence of a French ‘B’ team will be received in New Zealand. NZR officials were reported to be ‘livid’ about the decision, and it will do nothing to help the All Blacks, who need as many fully-loaded games with nations north of the equator as they can get to avoid the growing insularity of Super Rugby. But maybe that was part of the cunning French plan too.

On the field, the New Zealand coaches need to decide whether trends elsewhere in the world are worth following, particularly around the blue-riband number seven jersey. Sam Cane became a cap centurion for the All Blacks in the Rugby Championship, and has been an important leader and cog in the back-row machine for as long as anyone can remember.

But the latest batch of stats reveal that the expectations of the man who wears seven on his back have changed significantly.

A clear difference emerges between the expectation of a seven in Argentina and South Africa on the one hand, and Australia and New Zealand on the other. The Boks and the Pumas look for an all-rounder at the spot [both Siya Kolisi and Pablo Matera have started across all three back-row positions]; one who can carry more ball – about twice as much as a Kiwi or Aussie open-side – and in Matera’s case, win lineout [11 takes in the Rugby Championship].

The Wallabies and All Blacks look for the number seven to be a major tackler and cleanout force. In this respect, Australia gleaned more production from their combination of Tizzano and McReight than New Zealand received from Cane. The Wallaby pair averaged five more tackles per game, made more dominant hits and were more of a threat on the ground after a tackle had been made.

Some of the doubts about Cane’s ongoing value were highlighted in the second Bledisloe Cup game.

Both of New Zealand’s two natural sevens, Ardie Savea and Cane, react in exactly the same way when Wallaby nineJake Gordon runs off to the left of the scrum. They follow the ball and look to close up on that side of the field, and that leaves the short-side exposed.

The impression of a duplication of functions was compounded by Cane’s difficulties in open-field defence. The ex-skipper struggled defend the Australian backs one-on-one when the Wallabies initiated attacking forays from their own end in the first half.

There is no problem with Cane’s ability to deliver a frontal hit of earth-shaking proportions, but running in space to catch up with backs or mirror movement in an open field? That is another matter.

The concerns about his concrete role in the team extended to the other side of the ball. With a combined six clean breaks and 26 tackle busts between them, Savea and Wallace Sititi are shouldering the entire burden.

The big players in the scoring move are Savea [digging the ball out for a breakdown pilfer] and Sititi [making the half-break and offload], with Cane shipping the ball on between the two in the middle. Is that enough for a country which has always prided itself on the production line of outstanding number sevens?

Savea and Sititi do the hard yakka up the middle, with Cane drifting into shot as the shot widens on TJ Perenara’s break. Is it enough? Especially when you have one number seven who can run like this.

And another potential open-side who was described thus by his head coach after the third match in Ellis Park.

“Ethan [Blackadder] is ‘possessed’ – you said it, I didn’t,” Scott Robertson said, in response to a journalist’s assessment of the rampaging flanker. “He is some athlete, isn’t he? He’s got no ‘off’ button, he’s 100%… Once he’s in, he’s in. I was impressed. I’m glad he’s got a few games under his belt and his body’s in great nick and we love his energy.”

Add Hurricane Peter Lakai to that mix and you have three number sevens of the new breed – blokes who can carry ball and win lineout on top of the more traditional chores.

New Zealand rugby needs to bend every sinew to bridge the gulf between Super Rugby and the rest of the world. Judging by France’s decision to leave its top 20 players at home for next year’s tour, the rest of the world will still say ‘nay’. It will not raise a finger to help New Zealand out. That will not further the cause of international rugby, nor will it help Dupont tick off all the items on his lengthy bucket list.