Antoine Dupont (captain of Les Bleus, after 30-29 victory over New Zealand ) : “Winning against a big team like that is always good, and this success is foundational for the group. Our shared experience helped us not to panic after the first half when we were dominated in the collisions. Playing the All-Blacks is always an immense honor and a great pleasure, and you have to make the most of moments like that.. (on TF1)

In a press conference, the scrum-half took his analysis a step further. “Winning in this way brings a lot of joy at the end. That feeling, when we have to hold our line, that we can count on each other, it’s exhilarating. It’s a very strong feeling that we all shared at the final whistle. (…) At international level, you have to be able to win in any way you can. And that’s what we did. Deprived of the ball, we defended very well and were able to score from turnovers, from the few opportunities we had. It’s important to win like that. You can often tell a team’s state of mind by its defense, by all the efforts it makes without the ball. And this was perhaps the match in which we defended the most. And we had this state of mind of not giving up anything for each other to achieve our common goal.”