MARSEILLE, France (AP) — A serious-looking facial harm to captain Antoine Dupont took the gloss off France’s highest ever rating, a 96-0 romp in opposition to hapless Namibia on the Rugby World Cup on Thursday.
There have been 14 tries, together with a penalty strive, and Thomas Ramos transformed 12 of 13.
The Rugby World Cup’s seventh highest rating was marred by his game-ending harm, after he was in a head-on-head collision with Namibia captain Johan Deysel within the forty fifth minute. Deysel was yellow-carded for the harmful upright hit whereas Dupont walked off in misery. He left Stade Velodrome instantly for hospital scans.
“There’s a suspicion of a crack or fracture to his jaw. He’s gone for checks,” coach Fabien Galthie mentioned. “We’ll look ahead to the (check) outcomes earlier than shifting ahead.”
Dupont will seemingly miss France’s final pool recreation in opposition to Italy in two weeks. The quarterfinals are in three weeks. Galthie can be second-guessed for leaving his greatest participant on the sector whereas the staff was main 54-0.
“How do you count on me to reply that? I can’t take 15 gamers off at halftime. We had deliberate to make adjustments to the remainder of the staff within the fifty fifth minute,” Galthie mentioned. “We’re all the time very involved when a participant goes off injured.”
France misplaced star flyhalf Romain Ntamack to a critical knee harm earlier than the event and Matthieu Jalibert is a top-class alternative. However Dupont is taken into account the world’s greatest participant, France’s inspiration, and irreplaceable.
Deysel’s yellow card was upgraded to purple by a bunker assessment. By coincidence, Namibia’s solely different Rugby World Cup purple card was to Jacques Nieuwenhuis in 2007 additionally in opposition to France, which went on to attain its earlier file check rating, 87-10.
The heavy-hitters who made the scoreboard this time included winger Damian Penaud with a hat trick, and winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey, heart Jonathan Danty and flanker Charles Ollivon who grabbed two every.
“The tries are anecdotal. We’ll keep in mind as we speak’s victory,” Penaud mentioned. “Now we’ve discovered a little bit of cohesion on the pitch, it bodes properly for the longer term.”
The opposite strive scorers within the Marseille mauling had been lock Thibaud Flament, alternative scrumhalf Baptiste Couilloud, alternative fullback Melyvn Jaminet and a last-gasp penalty strive.
Penaud’s try-scoring run prolonged to 6 video games and gave him a nationwide file 13 in a calendar yr, beating Phillipe Saint-André’s file from 1995, and put him one forward of Saint-André for Les Tricolores with 33 tries general.
France prolonged Namibia’s event dropping run to a file 25 video games.
“It was a tricky day on the workplace. Just a little bit humiliating,” Namibia coach Allister Coetzee mentioned. “Our goal remains to be alive, to win a recreation on the World Cup.”
Namibia had an intercept strive 5 minutes into the second half scratched off after the TMO confirmed Deysel’s collision with Dupont.
Les Tricolores opened the event beating New Zealand 27-13 and adopted with an uninspiring 27-12 victory in opposition to Uruguay. That recreation drew criticism and so Galthié picked a full-strength aspect which had the four-try bonus level inside 20 minutes.
“We acquired outmuscled and outclassed by a high quality French aspect,” Namibia hooker Louis van der Westhuizen mentioned. “We’ve acquired a number of native boys solely enjoying (membership) rugby in Namibia, so for them to play on a world stage like this in entrance of a crowd like that is large.”
France’s two-week break will embrace time with households. Italy on Oct. 6 will provide Penaud an opportunity to overhaul winger Vincent Clerc on 34 tries and transfer nearer to France’s record-holder Serge Blanco on 38.
Namibia misplaced 52-8 to Italy and was overwhelmed by the All Blacks 71-3. It concludes in opposition to Uruguay in Lyon subsequent Wednesday when it hopes to finish a file 25-game dropping run on the event since 1999.
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AP Rugby World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/rugby