Off comes the scrum cap. The Stade de France is slowly emptying: of people, of noise, of hope. Antoine Dupont trudges across the turf, dazed and directionless, hands clasped to his head. This is a place he knows and a feeling he does not. He drags his blue jersey up over his face, but the tears do not come yet, and so he pulls it down again. For perhaps the first time on a rugby field, Dupont has no idea what he’s supposed to be doing.
They broke his face, and then they broke his heart. It will be of little use to him to know that he has played a starring role in perhaps the greatest game ever played. It matters not that over the last few weeks he has won over more converts to this team and this sport than any man since Jonah Lomu. The 73 passes he made – almost four times as many as any of his teammates – will feel like they were for nothing.
