The Breakdown | England beware: rugby’s Messi is even better after Olympic sevens stint

Tickets to watch France play England this weekend are not cheap. Premium adult seats cost £199 apiece and even the most affordable ones up in the gods will set you back £89. Before you phone the Rugby Football Union to enquire if an England win is included as part of the deal, however, ask yourself how often in life you have the chance to witness pure genius.

Admittedly this can be a subjective debate. Taylor Swift fans will have a different opinion to, say, Bob Dylan disciples. However, in contemporary sport there can surely be increasingly little debate. With all due respect to the colossal talents of Novak Djokovic, Max Verstappen, Patrick Mahomes, Simone Biles and Mohamed Salah, the name Antoine Dupont must be close to the top of the list.

Perhaps only Biles, a mere four months younger than Dupont, can rival France’s scrum-half for multifaceted, all-round brilliance. But in gymnastics there are no hulking forwards constantly trying to smash you into next week. Dupont can kick with both feet, he can run and offload, he can tackle like a youthful bull, he can see space like no one else can and, by way of an added bonus, he is captain of his national team as well. The word genius, in this case, really does apply.

Last Friday night against Wales he ended up being substituted after just 49 minutes, essentially because he was too good. Three try assists against moderate opposition might not sound much in isolation but the wider message it sent out was unmistakable. With the game already won, let’s keep “Tony Bridge” nice and fresh for Twickenham. Watch out England, we’re coming for you.

The lofty title being used on Irish television was “the Messi of rugby”. Even seen-it-all former pros such as the Ireland and British & Irish Lions full-back Rob Kearney were unequivocal.

“For me, he’s the greatest to ever play the game,” Kearney said. “Dupont’s the smallest guy on the field and he’s still able to have this enormous impact. He’s as strong as anyone, kicks off both feet, passes well, great rugby brain. There are no faults to his game. He can do everything and he does it week in, week out, every single time.”

Furthermore – and this really should send a shiver down the spines of all France’s future opponents – it appears he is still improving.

His Olympic gold medal‑winning stint playing sevens for France last year has made him more effective around the rucks – witness his four turnovers in the Champions Cup final last season – and sharpened his radar when it comes to spotting and exploiting defensive gaps.

Antoine Dupont, scoring a try against Fiji at the Paris Olympics, used his gold-winning run to hone his ability to spot defensive gaps. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

To watch him first hand when Toulouse thrashed Exeter before Christmas was also to appreciate the positive influence he has on those around him. Toulouse racked up 64 points and Dupont, either picking devastating inside lines or finishing tries himself, was the dynamo who made it all tick. Another former Ireland international, Shane Horgan, who played for years alongside the outstanding Brian O’Driscoll, is another huge fan. “He’s got all the constituent parts of everything you’d want in a brilliant rugby player,” he said. “He’s almost the perfect player.”

Which prompts a few questions, the first being whether England or anyone else will be able to subdue France’s shining comet during this Six Nations campaign? “The boys joke around and call him ‘The Martian’, like he’s not from Earth, he’s an alien,” Toulouse’s international forward Emmanuel Meafou said last year. “He does some stuff at training where you can’t do anything but shake your head and just wish you could do that, too. He’s also a real humble guy.”

How the whole of France would love to rewind the clock to the fateful 2023 World Cup pool game against Namibia when Dupont, with his side already miles ahead, sustained a fractured cheekbone following a head-on tackle by Johan Deysel. Would Les Bleus have lifted the Webb Ellis Cup had he stayed fully fit? No one will ever know but his side, as a bare minimum, would have been appreciably harder to beat.

Which begs another wider thought: might Dupont just be the greatest player to tread the turf at Twickenham?

England have had their oval-ball favourites but never a scrum‑half of such magisterial talent nor a playmaking catalyst in the same class. And when red‑rose supporters think of the greatest cockerel‑strutting French teams seen in south-west London not even their influential No 9s – Jacques Fouroux, Jérôme Gallion, Pierre Berbizier or Fabien Galthié – would be leapfrogging the 28-year-old from Castelnau-Magnoac, a village not far from the Spanish border.

Which leaves those Mount Rushmore legends from New Zealand: Jonah Lomu, Richie McCaw, Michael Jones and Dan Carter. Or Australia’s David Campese and France’s Serge Blanco, instigator of that ultimate team try scored by Philippe Saint-André for France against England in 1991. Or Barry John, Mike Gibson and Jackie Kyle, all of whom illuminated Twickenham years ago.

Not forgetting, of course, Wales’s Gareth Edwards, hailed widely as the greatest rugby player, male or female, of the past half-century. Rewatch his all-time classic try for the Barbarians against the All Blacks in 1973 and listen to Cliff Morgan’s lyrical commentary – “Oh that fellow Edwards … what can touch a man like that?” – and it seems inconceivable the great scrum-half could ever be nudged into second place.

Maybe, though, that moment is finally arriving. “It’s taken 50 years to be compared with somebody,” Edwards said last year when asked if he saw something of himself in his modern-day rival. This Saturday could just be the day Dupont assumes his mantle as the undisputed GOAT. If you are lucky enough to have a ticket, keep it safe.

• This is an extract taken from our weekly rugby union email, the Breakdown. To sign up, just visit this page and follow the instructions.