A facial injury to captain Antoine Dupont took the gloss off France's highest ever score, a 96-0 romp against hapless Namibia at the Rugby World Cup on Thursday, September 21. There were 13 tries, including a penalty try, and Thomas Ramos converted 11 of 12.
The Rugby World Cup's seventh highest score was marred by Dupont's game-ending injury, after he was in a head-on-head collision with Namibia captain Johan Deysel in the 45th minute. Deysel was yellow-carded for the dangerous upright hit while Dupont walked off to tears.
A suspected broken cheekbone would sideline him for three weeks, which coincides with the quarterfinals. But coach Fabien Galthié will be second-guessed for leaving his best player on the field while the team was leading 54-0.
Deysel's yellow card was upgraded to red by a bunker review. By coincidence, Namibia's only previous Rugby World Cup red card was to Jacques Nieuwenhuis in 2007 also against France, which went on to achieve its previous record test score, 87-10.
The heavy-hitters who made the scoreboard this time included winger Damian Penaud with a hat trick, and winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey, center Jonathan Danty and flanker Charles Ollivon who grabbed two each.
The other try scorers in the Marseille mauling were lock Thibaud Flament, replacement scrumhalf Baptiste Couilloud, replacement fullback Melyvn Jaminet and a last-gasp penalty try.
Penaud's try-scoring run extended to six games and gave him a national record 13 in a calendar year, beating Phillipe Saint-André's record from 1995, and put him one ahead of Saint-André for Les Tricolores with 33 tries overall.
France extended Namibia’s tournament losing run to a record 25 games. Namibia had an intercept try five minutes into the second half scratched off after the TMO showed Deysel's collision with Dupont.
Les Tricolores opened the tournament beating New Zealand 27-13 and followed with an uninspiring 27-12 victory against Uruguay. That game drew criticism and so Galthié picked a full-strength side which had the four-try bonus point inside 20 minutes.
France's last pool game is against Italy on October 6, when Penaud will look to overtake winger Vincent Clerc on 34 tries and move closer to France’s record-holder Serge Blanco on 38.
Allister Coetzee’s Namibia lost 52-8 to Italy before being overwhelmed 71-3 by the All Blacks, and concludes against Uruguay in Lyon next Wednesday.