Dupont and Gibson-Park: Two world class 9s, two different paths to the top

Ciarán Kennedy SATURDAY’S CHAMPIONS CUP final pits two of the world’s best scrum-halves against each other and while nobody ever doubted that Toulouse’s Antoine Dupont would one day be playing on the game’s biggest stages, the same cannot be said for Leinster nine Jamison Gibson-Park .

Dupont grew up rugby-mad in Castelnau-Magnoac, a small town in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Last year, locals recalled to The Times how a young Dupont would “always be dodging in and out of the cars with a ball in his hand” outside the family-owned Hotel Dupont in the village square. The young Gibson-Park was fast and athletic and felt his qualities might be better suited to a different sport, so stepped away from the game for a year. When he went back to give it another go, he started to make representative teams and his slow path to the top of the game began to take shape.Dupont became a star everywhere he went.

In 2017 Toulouse came calling and Dupont – signing in the same summer as All Black prop Charlie Faumuina and South Africa’s Cheslin Kolbe – prepared to go stratospheric. Two years after his arrival, Toulouse ended a seven-year wait for the Top 14 title. The scrum-half’s speed of play suited the game Farrell was looking to implement but he had also worked hard on improving his overall skillset. Having grown up as a nine who liked to run with the ball, Gibson-Park found his boot become an increasingly important weapon for both Leinster and Ireland.

“When you think about a New Zealand upbringing, it’s a lot of touch rugby in the yard,” explains fellow New Zealander Andrew Goodman, who has been running the Leinster attack for the last two seasons. Leinster appear to be running more of their play through Gibson-Park this season – perhaps a product of losing Sexton to retirement.

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