Ultimate Rugby's Six Nations Player Of Round One | Antoine Dupont

The opening weekend of the Six Nations did not disappoint as we saw a French side in full flight, an upset at Twickenham and drama in Cardiff. 

France made light work of Italy to open their Six Nations account for 2021 with a 50-10 rout in Rome, picking up from where they left off last year before Scotland ended a 38-year wait for victory over England at Twickenham as a hard-working and industrious display earned a deserved 11-6 triumph and Calcutta Cup glory. The action concluded on Sunday as Wales took advantage of Peter O'Mahony's early dismissal and survived a fightback from 14-man Ireland to start their Six Nations campaign with a 21-16 win in Cardiff.

Ultimate Rugby's Six Nations Team of the Week - Round One

While there were a number of standout performances in the opening weekend of the 2021 6 Nations, one stood out far beyond the rest. That ofcourse was the showing Antoine Dupont produced in the opening game against Italy. 

The 24-year-old is our pick of the opening round of action after he scored a try while also equalling Freddie Michalak's Six Nations record of four try assists in a single match. Dupont equalled his tally of try assists in 2020 in just 60 minutes in Rome and doubled his tallies from his first three tournaments (2017,2018 and 2019).

Dupont became the first-ever Frenchman to be named as the Player of the Championship last year and if his first game is anything to go by, he may well claim back to back awards. The France scrum-half was the creative hub for his team in 2020 while being a menace with the ball in hand and his athleticism kept defences on the back foot throughout the competition. 

It didn't take long for Dupont to stamp his mark on the 2021 Six Nations as he assisted the first try of the game and tournament. After a Teddy Thomas' break, France attacked into the Italian 22 through Gabin Villiere with Dupont quickly shifting the ball from the rucks. The move concluded with Dupont sending Dylan Cretin over with the flanker stretching over to score under the sticks.

Although it doesn't seem it like it when he is charging around the pitch running in tries, making hits and doing things some can only dream, Antoine Dupont is not immune to the odd error or two. And we really mean two with the scrumhalf only making two errors all game.

Both errors came from Dupont trying to get a bit too much distance on his kicks. The first of these two mistakes took place shortly after France's first try as he managed to turn the Italian backfield cover with the bounce of the ball not falling in his favour. Italy dotted the ball down for a 22 drop out. So not a major error.

With France up 3-24 by the 34th minute, Dupont made his second error. Again he tried to pin Italy back in their 22. 

He managed to turn Monty Ioane but once again he had put too much power behind his kick. 

This time the ball rolled over the dead ball line for an Italy scrum in France's half. 

Dupont had an extremely well-round game with a swift and slick passing performance with stellar support lines and excellent defence to round it all off. 

While we did highlight the two errors from Dupont's boot, it wasn't all bad in that category as he assisted Gael Fickou for France's second try of the game.

Italy failed to cover their in-goal area from a driving maul. Dupont spotted this and put through a deft kick that Fickou simply dotted down.

While Dupont is superb at reading the game from an attacking point of view, he is just as good reading the game from  a defensive aspect.

He showed this off as Monty Ioane spotted a good opportunity to chip and chase over the French defensive line. 

Dupont saw this opportunity too and quickly reacted to gather the ball and did extremely well to keep the ball in play with Ioane taking him into touch.

Moments later Dupont was back at it as he sped to the resulting ruck where he would show off another key attribute of a scrumhalf, the box kick.

He hung up a great kick which Teddy Thomas chased superbly and chat Jacopo Trulla down before the fullback could make any ground.

One of Dupont's brightest moments in the 2020 Six Nations was his massive tackle on England's scrumhalf Willie Heinze. 

The Les Bleus ace showed that this was not a one-off hit.

The scrumhalf made four tackles against Italy and the two we picked out were certainly excellent in execution as well as timing. In the 23rd minute of the game with Italy attacking inside the French 22, Garbisi got the ball wide to Johan Meyer - arguably Italy's strongest ball carrier. Meyer scored from a similar possession to this last year against Wales but could not do the same against France.

I have a feeling that Johan Meyer doesn’t like fullbacks #SaffasAbroad pic.twitter.com/qaFjPV2Qb8

— Jared Wright (@jaredwright17) January 8, 2021

Dupont spotted the threat and shot up to take Meyer at his legs and stop any momentum before he got going.

His second tackle that we picked out was just as crucial. 

Monty Ioane got one his chip and chases right this time and France are under the cosh.

As they looked to go wide from Ioane's breach of the French defensive line, Dupont spots that Italy have the numbers advantage and sprints up to hit Trulla backwards and stall the attack.

It was some thirty seconds later that the halfback was hacking on the loose ball that Italy spilt.

Gabin Villiere managed to regather the ball and get the pass away to Dupont who produced a magnificent offload to Arthur Vincent to score.

Having assisted three tries already, it was time for the youngster to get on the scoreboard himself. 

After a sloppy lineout which Dylan Cretin just managed to tap on France's side, Dupont made an excellent catch and shifted the ball out wide quickly.

Teddy Thomas made a beaut of an arching run to slice through the defence with the man of the matching running a perfect supporting line to score.

Dupont was quick to return the favour to Teddy Thomas as he once again followed a line break perfectly.

This time it was Mathieu Jalibert who made the break and sent the scrumhalf sprinting into the 22.

He quickly assessed his options before spotting Thomas out wide and ofcourse threw a perfect pass out to him for the winger to score.

The Frenchman ended the game with 39 passes, 9 kicks from hand, 5 carries, 2 defenders beaten, 3 clean breaks, 74 running metres, 4 try assists and one try.