Positive Dupont fitness update as Deysel banned

MISSING SKIPPER: Namibia captain Johan Deysel.

Namibia captain Johan Deysel has been banned for six games following his dangerous tackle on Antoine Dupont that left the France skipper with a facial fracture. Deysel was sent off during the Rugby World Cup Pool A match that Namibia lost 96-0.

Deysel's yellow card following the head-to-head tackle, with France leading 54-0, was upgraded to red on review.

He will miss Namibia's final World Cup fixture against Uruguay on Wednesday, plus five other matches to be determined. If Deysel completes World Rugby's coaching intervention programme, the ban will be reduced to five games.

Deysel appeared before an independent disciplinary panel, when he accepted that foul play had occurred and had warranted a red card.

The panel decided that the entry point was a 12-match ban, then reduced by 50 per cent due to mitigating factors such as his disciplinary record and apology to Dupont, plus another match removed on completion of tackle school.

World Rugby said that the panel categorised Deysel's action as "being at the top end of the scale of seriousness of offending" with regard to the "degree of recklessness involved in the offending, the vulnerability of the victim player and the significant injury to him".

France will undoubtedly miss Dupont but, centre Arthur Vincent said, have other players who can take up his leadership role at the World Cup.

"It's definitely a big blow to lose a player like Antoine. He is our captain, he's the best player in the world," Vincent told reporters at the team camp in Aix-en-Provence. "But we've already been through those kind of situations, unfortunately. We're solid as a group, we've experienced that before.

"Things will come naturally. There is not only one captain. We have a group of leaders who have been working together for the last four years. All the players know their roles and bring something to the table."

"His mere presence is important," Vincent added. "If we have him with us on our video sessions and in training, he'll have things to say, he'll bring his expertise on certain aspects of the game."

While Maxime Lucu or Baptiste Couilloud will replace Dupont in the number nine shirt, flanker Charles Ollivon will return to the captaincy he previously held for two years from 2020.

France's final Pool A match is against Italy in Lyon on Oct. 6 but thoughts of the quarter-finals were triggered when their likely opponents, South Africa and Ireland, played an epic test last weekend.

"We had to watch this, of course," Vincent said of Ireland's 13-8 win. "It was a very tough match, very competitive. It was a huge match. South Africa could have won it as well."

Prop Reda Wardi also enjoyed the match but was not perturbed about the prospect of facing the Springbok pack nor the "Bomb Squad" of replacements they have on the bench.

"We know they have a huge forward pack," he said. "When they go for a seven-one bench split, you can expect that they want to bring physicality. They are high-level rugby players but not supermen."