Dupont & Co need to take on the very best

I THINK we established long ago that my admiration of Antoine Dupont knows no bounds, he is the best rugby player I have ever reported on or watched in the flesh, pipping Gareth Edwards by a short head, but there is no question that there is a gaping huge hole in his CV which many cite against him when the all-time lists are compiled and debated.

- BRENDAN GALLAGHER

I’m not talking about his failure to land a World Cup winners’ medal – that is totally irrelevant to his iconic status in my eyes – but the deficiency to which I refer is that he has yet to take on any of the southern hemisphere giants on their own turf. Yes, he has beaten all three in either autumn internationals or World Cup games and often been the star man in those games but that’s only half the story, isn’t it.

You’ve got to be able to do it home and away, in front of hostile crowds and playing in unfamiliar conditions. Edwards shone mightily in South Africa in 1974 – not so much in 1968 as it happens – and finished the 1971 Lions tour to New Zealand like a train although overall it was honours even with opposite number Sid Going.

Thus far Dupont, 27, hasn’t taken on the Boks on the Highveld at Loftus or Ellis Park, he hasn’t faced the All Blacks at their Eden Park citadel and endured the 24/7 scrutiny that even a short tour/series in New Zealand involves and he hasn’t encountered the, er, wit and barracking of Aussie crowds and media or played at the towering Olympic stadium.

I don’t doubt for a microsecond that he would excel down south – to my mind it’s a given – but alas France’s policy of sending understrength teams on their summer tours seems to rule this possibility out. In recent years second and even third teams squads have been dispatched to New Zealand, Australia and Argentina.