Dusautoir the latest French icon

FORGET Raphael Ibanez, Frederic Michalak and even Sebastien Chabal. Many feel Thierry Dusautoir could be the new face of French rugby.

When coach Bernard Laporte named his 30-player squad for the World Cup on June 14, he omitted the 25-year-old flanker but named him on his 12-man reserve list.

“After the coach rang to tell me I wasn’t in the squad, I felt really down because I thought I deserved a place,” he told reporters yesterday. “When he rang again to tell me I was in, I decided to lock all my doubts and complexes in a closet and to do everything to win a berth in the team.”

Born in Abidjan where his father, a French soldier, met his Ivorian mother, Dusautoir was 10 when his family moved to Perigueux, in the Dordogne area. Judo was his first sport.

“One day, I failed a test for the black belt. It was a real disappointment and I was tired of training alone while all my friends were enjoying themselves as a group, playing rugby. I joined them,” he recalls.

It was studies first in the Dusautoir family and while playing at Perigueux, then Begles and Colomiers, he went to university and became a chemical engineer.

It was only then that he decided to have a go at professional rugby. He moved to Biarritz in 2004 and won the French championship title in 2006.

“When he joined he was still a student but, after playing with clubs fighting for survival, he was already a true warrior,” Jacques Delmas, the Biarritz coach in charge of the forwards, recalled.

“In two seasons he became a complete player and for the 2006 final, we had to give him a start at the expense of Thomas Lievremont who was an international player and our captain.”

For personal reasons, Dusautoir decided to move to Toulouse at the start of last season. Guy Noves, the Toulouse coach, is also full of praise.

“Thierry is intelligent, thoughtful. He wants to learn, he pays attention to the smallest detail because he wants to be the best,” he said when Dusautoir was recalled to the squad.

“I’m not going to tell you he is Richie McCaw, but he is on the right track. I have to declare an interest, but I think he was France’s number one flanker last season.”