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'I have my opinion': Ntamack wades into Dupont injury debate

Romain Ntamack of France after the Guinness Six Nations Rugby Championship match between Ireland and France at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. (Photo By Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)
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France fly-half Romain Ntamack feels it is “totally incomprehensible” that the terms of his suspension differed to the sanction handed to Ireland centre Garry Ringrose.

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Ntamack returned to action in Les Bleus’ 42-27 victory in Dublin last weekend after missing two Guinness Six Nations matches following his red card in the round-one win over Wales.

Ringrose is available to feature in Ireland’s championship finale away to Italy on Saturday, having sat out only one Test match – Ireland’s defeat to France – as punishment for his dismissal against the Welsh.

While Ringrose was permitted to count a Leinster fixture as part of his ban, Toulouse playmaker Ntamanck was unable to include a club match in his punishment.

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“There is an injustice here, because I believe our case was also based around how one of the matches in my suspension I would play for Toulouse,” the 25-year-old said ahead of Saturday’s game against Scotland.

“And when 10 days later the complete opposite (for Ringrose) is decided in contrast to what the commission told me that is in every shape and form totally incomprehensible.

“I think we must start pounding our fist on the table because it is time these decisions going against us and costing us dearly stop.”

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France will win the Six Nations by beating Gregor Townsend’s Scots in Paris.

Ntamack is likely to partner Bordeaux scrum-half Maxime Lucu at Stade de France after his club-mate Antoine Dupont sustained serious knee damage against Ireland, prompting anger in the French camp.

“I have my opinion on that and I will keep it to myself,” Ntamack said of Dupont’s injury, which occurred during a ruck clearout involving Irish pair Tadhg Beirne and Andrew Porter.

“It is always upsetting when a player is injured in such an incident. It is never very clear in this type of situation.

“There will be a debate round rucks forever. I think, though, it is imperative that we all sit around a table and clarify it a little.”

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David Laurenson 1 hour ago
Has the balance between attack and defence become too lopsided?

I and the many others could not disagree more. The score lines are reflective of mainly the ability of the more dominate team, on the day. Forward tries by crash n bash, The illegal mauls, where players are ahead of the ball carrier are an easy score. The one area where the offence team is king though is the Maul !The defensive capabilities to stop a maul are nil, it used to be that all players were not offside as long as they had contact with another player. This was mandatory whether or not you were at the sides or in fact anywhere in the meelay. Now you have to retreat on the refs call to the back, you can’t even tackle the ball carrier, as you then get penalized for collapsing the maul. ALL the advantage is with the offensive side, Mauls are a freeby ! The structure that favors forward participation is predicable and boring. Backs have had to become forwards ! Line speed has totally killed off, running play. To qualify the offside laws have not or seldom been altered since rugby went professional. No compensation has been made for these elite athletes of today, meaning LESS time and SPACE to find a gap. Our game is compressed. We see all games where the pass is made and the receiver getting cleaned out. What does this tell us ? As coaches you have designed a bar the door screen of players, we have pods of forwards, hitting up with intent yet hardly making the gain line, time and time again. with phase play in the thirties. Backs are now used as forwards to hit it up and hopefully retain possession from the tackled ball or ruck. If you diagnosed our game with mathematicians and engineers, they would come up with two causes. Either you have less players, or you enlarge the field of play. Of course this would not be entertained, so the obvious solution is to add a metre to all the current off side laws. WHY to give a little time and space for the offensive team to attack, that’s right the opposite to what we have just read, but for both sides this would allow some freedom for backs to be backs, less kicking, less forward interference, we may even get our game back as it would be more enjoyable to play, to follow, to ref, fans could actually view tactics in motion as against the current predictability. Compression is negative, a little separation freedom.

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