Tadhg Beirne hits out at online abuse after rugby ‘incident’ injures Antoine Dupont
Tadhg Beirne offered his sympathy to Antoine Dupont and hit out at the online abuse.
Munster captain Tadhg Beirne offered his sympathy to Antoine Dupont after his season-ending injury but vehemently denies purposely injuring the France star.
Dupont will miss Toulouse’s Investec Champions Cup and Top 14 defence after he tore an ACL in the Six Nations clash against Ireland, which France won 42-27 despite the captain’s blow in the first half.
An accident
Beirne and fellow forward Andrew Porter cleared out the scrum-half at a breakdown, which led to the injury, with France head coach Fabien Galthie slamming the actions of the Ireland forwards.
“We feel bad for [Antoine]. In terms of the action, in my opinion, it was reprehensible, and there are ways to study and analyse it,” Galthie told France 2 TV after the match.
He added: “We are angry and we want an explanation; so, we have cited two players. We must protect our players. There are rules, regulations… there’s a sort of anger.
“I do not want to pass judgment on the quality of refereeing today. The citing commissioner will decide whether these actions were reprehensible or not.”
Despite the backlash from the French coach and later the FFR president, Florian Grill, Porter and Beirne were not cited for their actions, while the Irish prop hit back at Galthie’s allegations in the days that followed.
“He can say what he wants, see how far it gets him,” Porter said.
Regarding France’s decision to cite him, the Leinster star added: “No, I wasn’t disappointed. I knew what I did; I didn’t go out to try and injure anyone. That’s not the type of player I am. If he [Galthie] wants to think that, that’s up to him.
“I even sent Antoine a message on Instagram just to see how he was, and obviously you never want to see anyone going off the pitch like that.”
☘️ ‘I knew what I did’ – Andrew Porter’s blunt reaction to his involvement in Antoine Dupont injury
The backlash from Dupont’s injury impacted the two Ireland players as Porter and his wife Elaine were targeted with abuse on social media, with some of the abuse referencing the prop’s late mother as well as his unborn child.
And the same was true for Beirne, who believes the abuse he and his family received was punishment enough.
“I’m sorry for the fact that did happen to him, you don’t like see it happen to any player but the backlash myself and Porter and our families got afterwards was probably enough punishment for us on its own, to be honest with you,” he told reporters ahead of Munster’s Champions Cup clash against La Rochelle.
🤕 Jarring footage emerges of Antoine Dupont injury as furious France boss promises citings
Reached out to Antoine Dupont
Like Porter, Beirne insists that the injury was simply an unfortunate accident and confirmed that he made attempts to contact Dupont.
“I reached out to him. I messaged him on Instagram. I tried looking for him after the game as well, but I couldn’t get to him, he was obviously with medical teams,” he continued.
“You know, he has a million followers or something on Instagram. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to see a message from me, but look, it’s all I could do at the time. I sent my regards through Gregory Alldritt as well.
“It’s an incident, obviously, where you can slow it down and it can look bad, but it’s an incident that wasn’t intentional. I never intended to injure him. The last thing I want to do is injure the best player in the world.
“You don’t go out there to hurt anyone, but it was just unfortunate the way it happened.”
Munster’s attention now turns to the Champions Cup, where they face the Ronan O’Gara-coached La Rochelle for the first time ever, while Toulouse will look to progress past the round of 16 as they face off against the Sale Sharks.
