Why Antoine Dupont and a plethora of stars epitomise the soul of French rugby

Throughout the preparation for the 2015 World Cup, the then France coach Philippe Saint-André hosted six of the nation’s high cooks to the squad’s coaching base at Marcoussis. What was served to the gamers was studiously reported by an envious French press: lobster medallions, stuffed potatoes, inexperienced bean salad with foie gras and peaches. And that was only for starters. Subsequent have been two wild salmon – eight kilos every – accompanied by a salad of peas, feta cheese and mint. A short respite after which got here the foie gras soup with oysters, adopted by a cassoulet and varied barbecued meats. Dessert consisted of a buffet of delicacies together with chocolate muffins and lemon meringue tarts. “We ate and laughed with them,” stated one of many cooks, Yves Camdeborde. “It was like a picnic with buddies. After midnight, there was nothing left to eat.”

The following time France have been that stuffed was within the quarter-final, thrashed 62-15 by New Zealand. One imagines that the All Blacks didn’t practice for the 2015 World Cup on foie gras and lemon meringue tarts.

The bond between French gamers and their meals stays, and regularly the cash gamers make from the game is invested in eating places

France usually are not so decadent underneath Fabien Galthie’s regime, which matches some to explaining why the Bleus are fitter than they’ve ever been. The times are gone when France would invariably wilt within the last quarter of matches as all these chocolate muffins caught up with them.

Nonetheless the bond between French gamers and their meals stays, and regularly the cash gamers make from the game is invested in eating places. Xavier GarbajosaClement Poitrenaud, David AttoubFrédéric Michalak, William Servat, Fabien PelousPascal Pape and Jean-Luc Sadourny are simply among the Bleus who’ve in some form or type entered the restaurant commerce.

A few of them fail spectacularly, reminiscent of Michalak’s ‘64’ restaurant, which was launched in 2010 however lasted simply eighteen months. One other high-profile participant who was unable to switch his expertise on the rugby subject to the restaurant commerce was Jean-Pierre Rives.

Then again, Patrick Soula, a member of the Toulouse squad within the Nineteen Nineties, opened his first restaurant – ‘Tommy’s Diner’ – in 1993 and he now has an extra ten with a complete workers of 400.

Jean-Marie Cadieu, a former teammate of Soula’s, who received 12 caps for France within the second row, ran a restaurant for 20 years in Toulouse. “There are not any secrets and techniques within the restaurant enterprise,” he stated. “To succeed, as in skilled rugby, it’s important to study the commerce after which commit your self 100% to it. Prospects are fooled two or 3 times, not often extra, by the jokers who simply put their identify on an indication and are by no means there.”

There’s a lengthy custom of farming in French rugby, from the Spanghero brothers to the nice prop Jean-Pierre Garuet, hooker Daniel Dubrocaby to prop Jérôme Rey, a member of the present Lyon squad

However the hyperlink between meals and rugby in France is extra profound than the restaurant commerce; its roots are within the soil itself. One of many official suppliers for this 12 months’s World Cup is a union of French agricultural cooperatives. When the deal was introduced, the then event organiser, Claude Atcher, declared: “That’s the place rugby comes from: from these areas the place custom is dared, the place each gesture is a part of the respect for nature and the celebration of its excellence.”

There’s a lengthy custom of farming in French rugby, from the Spanghero brothers to the nice prop Jean-Pierre Garuet, hooker Daniel Dubroca, by to prop Jérôme Rey, a member of the present Lyon squad, who splits his time between the coaching floor and his dairy farm. “I come from the center of France,” Garuet as soon as stated. “From the land.”

Louis Picamoles is the most recent well-known French identify to launch his new life on the land, what Le Figaro described as “one other illustration of the robust hyperlinks which have united the worlds of rugby and agriculture for a few years”. Picamoles, who received 82 caps for the Bleus within the again row, is studying methods to turn out to be a producer of one in every of France’s specialities: goat’s cheese. A digicam crew lately spent a few days with Picamoles and his spouse on their remoted property the place they stay with their herd of goats. It’s a good distance from the glamorous life he led as a world sportsman however one which Picamoles is evidently having fun with: “I just like the solidarity that you simply discover within the farming group,” he stated. “And it’s much like the values now we have in rugby.”

Antoine Dupont comes from Castelnau-Magnoac, a small village within the Pyrenees. His household has been right here since 1850. Within the final thirty years his uncle, father and elder brother, Clement, have turn out to be award successful breeders of the well-known ‘Black Pig of Bigorre

Picamoles was a rarity amongst French rugby gamers in that he hailed from the north of the nation; the game’s heartlands are within the deep south. The blood is hotter down right here, the villages and cities extra tribal, and agriculture has historically been on the coronary heart of communities greater than within the industrialised north. It’s a virile land and rugby appealed to the boys who labored the soil.

Antoine Dupont comes from Castelnau-Magnoac, a small village within the Pyrenees. His household has been right here since 1850, operating a restaurant and farming. Within the final thirty years his uncle, father and elder brother, Clement, have turn out to be award successful breeders of the well-known ‘Black Pig of Bigorre’. “We spent our childhood between the household restaurant, fishing journeys and looking with our grandfather,” defined Clement in a latest interview with Midi Olympique. “When [Antoine] visits Castelnau-Magnoac, it’s to get away from all the things, escape the each day strain. The countryside is right in that respect as a result of it’s pure and unchanging.”

The final time France hosted the World Cup was in 2007 when, inexplicably, a mean unfastened ahead with lengthy hair and a beard grew to become the face of the event in France. The ‘Caveman’, as Sébastien Chabal was recognized, was a advertising creation who embarrassed rugby’s connoisseurs. There’s nothing embarrassing or phoney about Antoine Dupontwhose picture adorns a lot of the pre-tournament publicity in France.

The Toulouse scrum-half is not only the face of the World Cup, he’s the soul of French rugby, the illustration of its rural roots. He’s a person of the earth, and, one suspects, a person with a style for a superb plate of pigeon confit.