France crashed out of a home Rugby World Cup in heartbreaking fashion as they went down to South Africa in one of the greatest matches of all time and Antoine Dupont slammed the refereeing in the aftermath of the loss.
A thrilling quarter-final at the Stade de France ended with the Springboks triumphing 29-28 as France’s last-gasp stand to try and find the single score that would have led them to victory came up agonisingly short, in an excruciatingly similar manner to Ireland 24 hours earlier at the same stadium.
In a match decided by the finest of margins, Les Bleus captain Dupont – whose recovery from a fractured cheekbone suffered just 24 hours prior had dominated the build-up to the game –was unhappy with referee Ben O’Keeffe and let rip in his post-match press conference.
“It’s hard to talk about these things because there’s lots of disappointment and frustration,” said Dupont. “We could have had some penalties at crucial moments.
“I don’t want to be a bad loser and moan about the refereeing but I don’t think the refereeing was up to the level of what was at stake. It’s not just one person, there are TMOs, assistant referees and they have time to review images as the game is going on.
“This doesn’t take anything away from South Africa’s performance, they played a great game.”
