RUGBY: GAVIN CUMMISKEYon how Ireland have at least 38 good reasons to beware the French flanker and skipper
THIRTY-EIGHT is the number that will always be associated with him. The owner of the greatest statistic in international rugby leads the French team out tomorrow as the Six Nations returns to Lansdowne Road.
You don’t need to stop Thierry Dusautoir; he is not Chabal or Harinordoquy. No, he stops you. Cold. In your tracks.
Flicking back almost four years to when the name first rolled off commentators’ tongues, it wasn’t the brilliant French try he finished to initiate one of the most remarkable reversals in the history of sport that resonates. It was one of the 38 tackles he inflicted on the supposedly invincible All Blacks wearing unfamiliar grey jerseys.
The hit was on Jerry Collins. It was low and it seemed like the great blindside’s lower leg had been scythed off. An irresistible technique. More judo, which he began aged four, than rugby.
“When I was a kid, it wasn’t pictures of Serge Blanco or Philippe Sella on my bedroom wall but of David Douillet (French Judo legend and world champion) and Djamel Bouras (Olympic champion), these were my childhood heroes,” says Dusautoir.
“The thing about Thierry is that he gets very close to people before making the tackle and then uses his body in a way that generates a lot of force,” said France defence coach Dave Ellis.
“He came from judo where he learned about body position and the importance of where he positions his feet. A lot of the time, he stays on his feet while making the tackle and that means he can immediately get into position to make the next tackle.”
Former Ireland flanker and Toulouse publican Trevor Brennan’s club career briefly overlapped with Dusautoir although they smashed into each other on plenty of occasions before that.
“For the size of the man, he gets through a massive amount of work. His tackle count can be double that of other backrow players. But I also think he has become a more all-round player over the last couple of years as well.”
Continuing to embarrass fellow backrowers with his defensive numbers (“He averages something like 25 tackles per game,” said Brennan), he is a leader now as well as a valid lineout option and a link man too. For proof see Maxime Medard’s try against Scotland.
The French captain was born 29 years ago in Abibjan, the former capital of the Ivory Coast and fourth-largest French speaking city in the world after Paris, Kinshasa and Montreal to a French father and Ivorian mother, named Kekane.
The family moved to Perigueux in the Dordogne region of south-west France when he was 10, where he was primarily raised by Kekane. Picking up rugby was still six years away, although his dedication to judo prepared him for those 38 tackles. New Zealand’s collective total that night was 36.
His try in Cardiff has become an iconic moment, not in France, mind, as Les Bleus blew the semi-final in Paris against England, but in the history of rugby: a ruck deep in the New Zealand 22. Elissalde dummies to offload back inside but feeds Jauzion, who skips Chabal, whose mere presence fixes the defence, to Clerc, who threatens to dance but instead sprays a quick pass to a man who shouldn’t really be there. Bernard Laporte didn’t even pick Dusautoir for the initial 30-man squad in 2007. Elvis Vermeulen cried off injured, ensuring a late call-up for Toulouse’s new signing.
“Toulouse tend to only pick players who are already at a high level,” said Brennan. “He had won the French championship twice with Biarritz and he was one of their key forwards.”
Munster fans will be forgiven for not remembering Dusautoir’s contribution to the 2006 Heineken Cup final. It was on 52 minutes, with most of them in a state of anguish/delirium as Dimitri Yachvili penalties chipped away at the lead, when he joined Serge Betsen and Imanol Harinordoquy in the backrow.
That he replaced Tomas Liévremont is interesting. Tomas’s elder brother and current French coach, Marc, clearly sees himself in Dusautoir. Why else make him the national captain before the honour was bestowed upon him in Toulouse?
“He is the sort of fella that doesn’t talk for the sake of it,” Brennan continues. “There is good stuff coming out. Your captain has to be the first name on the team-sheet but a lot of people were calling for his head after the (59-16) loss to Australia in November but you can’t put that down to one player.
“Liévremont was still experimenting. I think 10 of the Grand Slam team were missing. That was the coach, not the captain but still a lot of pressure was focused on Thierry’s leadership. But any player who was asked said they didn’t want anyone else to lead them.”
There are obvious similarities in style or lack of. Liévremont was, and Dusautoir is, a silent assassin. Back in 2007, aged 25, he was winning only his eighth cap against New Zealand, but they have given him another 30. He seems a late bloomer but rugby was initially a means to fund a third level degree in chemical engineering, which he achieved.
People were unaware of the tackle count in the immediate aftermath of that All Black culling. They remember a man called “Dus-a-to-Ar” being everywhere. They remember him skipping out of a desperate tackle from Andrew Hore and skidding clear of Rodney So’oialo to get closer to the uprights for the conversion. Like a torpedo. Like he hits.
“That was a very important step for me. I was born Thierry Dusautoir, but on that day I was born in the eyes of the Grand Publique.” Household name.
Didier Drogba remains Abibjan’s most famous sporting son. In fact, Dusautoir probably trails well behind Manchester City’s Touré brothers Kolo and Yaya, Salomon Kalou or Emmanuel Eboué.
But people from Côte d’Ivoire will know about the 38 tackles. Something like that immortalises a sportsman. It is destined for his obituary. That he comes close to repeating the feat on a weekly basis will also be included.
Dusautoir once told journalist David Walsh of his four-day exhaustion after making all those tackles. He also made a point that flings crumbs of comfort Ireland’s way. “When we beat New Zealand in the World Cup, I was scared because when you have a good game with France, the next game is always bullshit.”
That he doesn’t need to speak much as captain should be familiar to us. We saw Brian O’Driscoll hitting the ruck before his try in Rome last week and carrying into the 22 to set up the ideal angle for O’Gara’s drop goal.
We will not always see Dusautoir tomorrow, but we will know he is there.
THE INCREDIBLES FRENCH FRONTROW PUT RIVALS UNDER PHENOMENAL PRESSURE
THE DESPERATE grimace etched across Euan Murray's face last Saturday as Thomas Domingo and William Servat forced him skywards must have made the renowned Scottish tighthead prop wish it was the Sabbath. If so, his reputation as a world-class scrummager would still be intact as Murray refuses to play on a Sunday on religious grounds.
The blame does not lie solely at Murray's feet, nor will it be incumbent on Mike Ross to neutralise Domingo tomorrow, as he has done twice for Leinster against Clermont Auvergne this season.
It wouldn't be enough anyway. Hooker Servat combines with his loosehead to put opposing tightheads in a vice that has already seen the Scottish and Wallaby scrums cough up penalty tries.
"William is phenomenally strong," says former Toulouse team-mate Trevor Brennan. "A great defensive player and his lineout throwing is excellent but the guy is just a beast. His nickname is Mr Incredible. He has the whole lot of the cartoon character – the head, the jaw, the nose."
The immense power of the French scrum also comes from the engine room of Julien Pierre and Lionel Nallet, who will eventually be relieved by Jerome Thion, one 50-plus cap lock for another. The experience is there too. The average age of the pack is 30, 31, if you include the bench, where Sylvain Marconnet(34), Thion (33) and Sebastien Chabal (33) are in the last chance saloon.
"I think they can cause the Irish scrum a lot of trouble," says Brennan. "They are not a very tall frontrow so they tend to scrummage very low to the ground."
Domingo, the kid of the pack at 25, is only 5ft 8in, while Nicolas Mas is 5ft 11in.
"Lievremont has been chopping and changing for the last three years, using nearly 100 players. It takes a while for a team to gel. Look at the Irish team, it took them nearly 10 years to win the Grand Slam yet 70-80 per cent of them were there the whole time."
Tomorrow's gnarled French eight have gathered 318 caps between them, which goes up to 517 if the bench is included and that's including sub hooker Guilhem Guirado's nine caps as he deputises for Dimitri Szarzewski.
– GAVIN CUMMISKEY
