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'We've prepared as if he's playing the best rugby of his life'
By Bryn Palmer
Glasgow head coach Franco Smith insists Warriors have prepared as if Antoine Dupont “is playing the best rugby of his life” with the French maestro poised to start a match for the first time in nine months in Saturday’s Champions Cup pool meeting at Scotstoun.
The 29-year-old Toulouse superstar, considered to be one of rugby’s all-time greats, suffered a serious knee injury on Six Nations duty against Ireland on 8 March this year.
He made his comeback two weeks ago when he played half an hour as a replacement in a Top 14 win over Racing 92, while last Sunday he again started on the bench and played 36 minutes as Toulouse thumped Durban Sharks 56-19 in their opening Pool 1 fixture.
Saturday will see Dupont appear from the start in a powerful Toulouse line-up featuring Romain Ntamack at No.10, Thomas Ramos at full-back, Scotland international Blair Kinghorn and Italy flier Ange Capuozzo on the wings, plus several France forwards including Julien Marchand and Thibaud Flament plus England flanker Jack Willis.
Dupont appears to have quickly found his groove again since returning to action, but Smith insists Glasgow have made no special plans to nullify his influence.
“There’s not much to make of him at the moment,” he said. “We always prepare on a player not for what he’s done, but what he can bring – that is the philosophy here. He’s a good player. It’s not his first time coming back from a big injury and he’s a professional.
“With his physical development, he would have done his rehab in a certain way. He’s had Sevens experience so we know he’s already a fit and strong player. I’m sure that he’ll be hitting his straps soon. We’ve prepared as if he’s playing the best rugby of his life.
“We definitely didn’t focus on him specifically. They’ve got too many threats around the park. I think that’s what they want – too much focus on him and you’ll allow too many other players to look like stars.
“No, we face them as a collective outfit. Yes, he’s a part of that, but there’s no special treatment or plans to nullify him. I know as a player and as a coach that nullifying of players is a mythical thing. It’s not really as practical as people might think it is.”
Warriors, who reached the quarter-finals of the elite European competition last season before a 52-0 humbling by Leinster in Dublin, began the current Champions Cup campaign with a hugely encouraging 26-21 away win over Sale Sharks last week.
And having made just one change to his starting line-up – Jamie Dobie taking over at scrum-half from George Horne, who moves to the bench – Smith believes his 2023-24 URC champions won’t be fazed by the prospect of tackling the six-time European champions, despite their status as one of, if not the, best club side in the world.
“These guys that are coming here, they’ve been on the front pages of a lot of magazines, I suppose, and they’ve been noted across the world as the superstars of the game,” he said. “If you look at it from that perspective, I think we haven’t had so many superstars in the opposition team here before.
“But that’s not a distraction for us. We have our own objectives and our own way to go about it. We have one or two of our own players on the front pages, so we will just concentrate on them.
“We’ve been around now many years and that doesn’t faze me personally and I hope the players didn’t pick up anything from my side. I am absolutely focused on what we can do, how we can progress. We would like to come off the pitch as a better team regardless of the result this weekend and that is going to be the challenge.”
Beating Toulouse would be a major statement of Glasgow’s European ambitions, in a blockbuster pool that will also see them face Clermont away and Saracens at home in January, but Smith insists it would be a natural progression for his side.
“I think people outside of the building definitely would see it [a win] as a statement. We don’t see it that way,” he said. “My dream here is to progress the players and the team. We won the URC, and I explained before we arguably had the best season last year [when a depleted Glasgow also to Leinster in the URC semi-finals].
“Maybe losing in the quarter-final of the European Cup and in the semi-final against the same team shines a wrong light on it all – if you look at the stats and where we finished and how early we qualified and everything that happened last season, we played really, really well. I thought we’re already established from that perspective.
“But this season we want to progress and get better. We need to win some of the big games, so that’s a mission. We want to install that ability to win big games and not be fazed by the opposition because of our own experiences and our own ability and our own dreams and beliefs.
“Even if we think we’ve got a lot of internationals, there’s still progression that can happen and we want to see how good we can become, and obviously this is now a big challenge in which we can measure and see where we are.”
What might have been a blistering game of attacking rugby is likely to be hugely affected by the weather conditions, with heavy rain forecast in the hours before the 8pm kick-off and winds of around 45mph likely to be swirling around Scotstoun during the game.
“It’s a pity,” Smith said. “We’re just going to try and not be distracted by that. We’ve planned for obviously a windy, wet game. We would like to be able to adapt to anything else as well. We’re just going to focus on the day, on the plans made for the specific weather conditions.”
While he will not be involved against Toulouse, Smith also gave an update on Scotland centre Huw Jones, who could return to action in the coming weeks, having undergone surgery on his Achilles following the British & Irish Lions tour of Australia.
“We’re treading water a little bit there,” he said. “One day forward, one day back. It is a difficult injury because it’s underneath his foot, so there’s toe movement and there’s heel movement and there’s muscle movement and tendons that play a role in that recovery. And with the Scotstoun pitch, that’s not grass, we always have challenges. He’s progressing and we hope we will get him back still within the original time frame.”
Smith added he was “not sure” if Jones would be in contention to face Edinburgh in a forthcoming URC double-header before and after Christmas.
Glasgow Warriors:
15. Josh McKay; 14. Kyle Steyn, 13. Stafford McDowall, 12. Sione Tuipulotu, 11. Ollie Smith, 10. Adam Hastings, 9. Jamie Dobie; 1. Nathan McBeth, 2. Gregor Hiddleston, 3. Zander Fagerson, 4. Max Williamson, 5. Scott Cummings, 6. Matt Fagerson, 7. Rory Darge, 8. Jack Dempsey.
Replacements: Seb Stephen, Rory Sutherland, Sam Talakai, Alex Craig, Gregor Brown, Ally Miller, George Horne, Dan Lancaster.
Toulouse:
15. Thomas Ramos; 14. Ange Capuozzo, 13. Paul Costes, 12. Kalvin Gourgues, 11. Blair Kinghorn, 10. Romain Ntamack, 9. Antoine Dupont; 1. David Ainu’u, 2. Julien Marchand, 3. Dorian Aldegheri, 4. Joshua Brennan, 5. Thibaud Flament, 6. Jack Willis, 7. Leo Banos, 8. Anthony Jelonch.
Replacements: Thomas Lacombre, Rodrigue Neti, Joel Merkler, Emmanuel Meafou, Mathis Castro-Ferreira, Alexandre Roumat, Paul Graou, Teddy Thomas.
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