Antoine Dupont takes another hit on injured cheek in first game back after the Rugby World Cup

France’s great scrum-half Antoine Dupont made his return to club duty after the Rugby World Cup, but he took another concerning shot to the head.

The half-back was on the bench for Toulouse for Saturday’s clash against Perpignan, but came on in the second period.

It was his first match for Les Rouge et Noir since Les Bleus’ disappointing exit from their home World Cup, where they were eliminated by South Africa in the quarter-finals.

No scrum cap

Playing without the scrum cap he wore during that clash, Dupont took a knock when he attempted to tackle USAP’s Alivereti Duguivalu.

Having seen the 26-year-old coming, the centre looked to hand him off but got it badly wrong as his elbow connected with the Toulouse man.

The contact was initially on the neck but moved up to the cheek area of Dupont and Duguivalu was subsequently sin-binned for his illegal act.

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It raised bad memories of the drama which engulfed France’s World Cup campaign after the star scrum-half fractured his cheekbone against Namibia during the pool stages.

On that occasion, Dupont received a high shot from Johan Deysel, who was duly red carded for the act which left the playmaker with a facial fracture.

Surgery and return

The Frenchman had surgery to correct the issue and he was cleared to play in the quarter-final against South Africa.

Dupont showed no ill-effects from Deysel’s tackle during that clash and impressed, but he could not stop Les Bleus from falling to a 29-28 defeat to the Springboks.

South Africa would then go on to lift the Webb Ellis Cup for the fourth time after beating England and New Zealand, also by one-point victories.

Dupont has had a few weeks to recover from the trauma of that loss, both physically and mentally, and was fortunately able to finish the match on Saturday.

Afterwards, he spoke about his return to action and how some of the reports of his injury were inaccurate.

“It’s always nice to come back when we leave for international periods,” he said. “This one was even longer and there were things to evacuate.

“It feels good to be back with the group, to get back into club life and to re-train and then play again. I read a lot of things that weren’t proven.

“I don’t know why it was said like that. But my healing period was over so I was able to resume normally like all my teammates to be able to apply and be in the group this weekend.”

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