Julien DUPUY

Biog of Julien DUPUY :

Like an unwanted gift, the news fell on the eve of Julien Dupuy’s 26th birthday. On 18 December 2009 Dupuy was banned for 24 weeks (reduced to 23 in January 2010) by the European Rugby Cup’s disciplinary panel, for gouging the Irishman, Ferris, during the Ulster/Stade Français match. The sanction acted as a time-out whistle on a dazzling rise in fortunes, which had begun on the other side of the Channel 18 months earlier. Playing for Leicester, Dupuy had won the English championship final and reached the final of the European Cup and looked to have a promising future with les Bleus after earning six caps (four in the starting line up) at scrum-half in the French team’s last six outings.

Having served his ban by May 2010, Dupuy was selected for France A to play in the Churchill Cup in the USA in June but a lot of water has passed under the bridge in the six months that he had been absent – Dupuy missed out on a Grand Slam, and Morgan Parra, a direct rival and his replacement before the ban, now has his feet firmly under the table. Dupuy does not need to start again from scratch but he does have to face up to a situation that he knew all too well during his time at Biarritz before his exile in England. For six seasons he toiled in the shadows of Dimitri Yachvilli, for example playing only eight minutes of the 2006 Top 14 final (victory against Toulouse) that he had contributed so much to get his team to, having scored 12 points with the boot in the semi-final against Perpignan.

So in the summer of 2008 Dupuy joined Leicester to make a new start. “I might as well leave for a big, ambitious club”, he explained at the time. The scrum-half of “the big club” was Harry Ellis, the England number nine. No matter. Dupuy gained five kilos of muscle, toughened up and relegated his English rival to the bench. He was in the starting line up 24 times that season, especially for the important matches. Lagisquet, his old coach at Biarritz, explained, “He found the will to be number one”. Dupuy himself commented, “I have more say now than I ever had before, and it’s nice”. All year long the British media wondered why Dupuy was not in the French team, and in fact it was a journalist that informed him of his call-up for the June tour, during the press conference before the European Cup final.

In New Zealand, Marc Lièvremont, who had coached Dupuy for Biarritz “hopefuls” (colts), discovered a new player. “He was timid before. Now he is decisive and determined.” The “pleasant waster”, as Lièvremont had called him, had become a competitor. Dupuy was the fifth scrum-half used by Lièvremont, and he made his debut partnered by Francois Trinh-Duc, against New Zealand at Carisbrook - “the House of Pain” - in Dunedin. Les Bleus struck a big blow, winning 22-27 (Dupuy scored 12 points) and only lost by a whisker the following weekend (14-10).

“I might have been lucky enough to go on the right tour, but it’s not because I’ve won a few caps that my place is secure,” he stressed on returning to France, having just signed for Stade Français. But Dupuy had done enough to be selected again and named in the starting line up for the November tests against the Springboks and New Zealand. Dupuy proved himself to be an astute tactician against South Africa (scoring 12 points out of 19), keeping the World Champions under pressure. Against the All Blacks he went down with the rest.

And then along came the European Cup match and his “stupid, angry reaction”. The intransigence of the English judge and the sanction did the rest… But the Périgueux-born scrum-half, who had a stint with Toulouse and whose heart belongs to Biarritz, has shown in the past that he has what it takes to get his career back on track. Dupuy, as stated above, was included in the France A squad to compete in the Churchill Cup in the USA in June 2010 in start his comeback, even though he had not played since December. He was appearing for Stade Français in the Top 14 by August 2010 but was not picked for the full French squad in November and for the 2011 Six Nations, finding himself behind Dimitri Yachvili and Morgan Parra in the pecking order.