Antoine Dupont ranked bottom in scrum-half category

The Guinness Six Nations opening round reaffirmed just how good Antoine Dupont is. Okay, it wasn’t a flawless performance in the 43-0 win against Wales but in the 49 minutes the little general was on the pitch, he came up with moments of brilliance that few others could match.

Operating as a nine and as de facto 10 at times, Dupont enjoyed a marvellous return to the Six Nations after his sabbatical in sevens, setting up three of Les Bleus’ four first-half tries before he was given a rest shortly after the break with the game well and truly wrapped up.

His short, disguised passes and his long, looping passes, including one which went three yards forward, unpicked the Wales defence at will and very rarely did he ever need to operate as a traditional scrum-half whipping the ball away from the base of the scrum or a ruck.

Antoine Dupont previews the Six Nations

Antoine Dupont previews the Six Nations

This may explain why Dupont’s pass was the slowest of all the 12 scrum halves who took to the field in round one, according to the Six Nations Smart Ball post-round report, insights by Sage. Dupont threw 62 passes at Stade de France and the average speed of those passes was just 30km/h – 32 per cent slower than Scotland’s replacement nine, George Horne, who was ranked first (39.7km/h).

The three top-performing scrum halves in this category were all replacements, with their figures derived from a smaller sample size. Italy’s Alessandro Garbisi (36.3km/h) ranks in joint second along with Wales reserve Rhodri Williams.

The starting scrum half with the fastest pass on the weekend was Ireland’s Jamison Gibson-Park, whose 79 passes averaged out at 35.7km/h. Tomos Williams threw the most (94) and was ranked sixth in terms of the speed of the delivery (35.2km/h).

Now-retired All Blacks scrum-half Aaron Smith is widely thought to have the best pass in terms of speed and accuracy in recent times. Smith once had a pass clocked at 69km/h when World Rugby organised the Ultimate Challenge skills series in 2022, although that was outside of a match environment.