Andrew Porter has denied that he intentionally tried to injure Antoine Dupont during Ireland’s Six Nations defeat to France.
France crushed Ireland 42-27 but saw Dupont limp off the field. It emerged the scrum-half, widely regarded as the best player in the world, had ruptured the cruciate ligaments in his knee.
Ireland’s Tadhg Beirne and Porter were involved in the incident that left Dupont injured and France furious. Their head coach Fabien Galthie labelled the Irish clear-out “reprehensible”, announcing his intention to refer second row Beirne and prop Porter to the citing commissioner for possible retrospective punishment.
Both players were cleared to feature in Saturday’s final-day fixture away to Italy.
Leinster loosehead Porter was adamant that he’d had “no malicious intent”.
Responding to Galthie, Porter declared: “He can say what he wants, see how far it gets him.”
Andrew Porter rejected French head coach Fabien Galthie’s claims
As for being cited, Porter said: “No, I wasn’t disappointed. I knew what I did; I didn’t go out to try and injure anyone. That’s not the type of player I am. If he [Galthie] wants to think that, that’s up to him.
“I even sent Antoine a message on Instagram just to see how he was and obviously you never want to see anyone going off the pitch like that.
“If you have the head coach calling for your head, it’s a bit much.
“But he’s such a pivotal player for them that they nearly don’t want him to be touched at all. Look, he’s entitled to his opinion but I know I haven’t done anything wrong there. I sleep well at night.”
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Dupont was visibly upset when he left the pitch in the 29th minute of Saturday’s match after Beirne, who appeared to be pushed by Porter, fell on his right leg, causing it to buckle.
France’s anger fuelled a breathtaking second-half display as they turned a slender 8-6 advantage into a emphatic demolition job to move into pole position for championship glory and end Ireland’s Grand Slam bid.
“His leg got trapped in between a ruck when he was trying to counter it and he obviously just got trapped and went over, ” Porter continued.
“It happens so much in this sport. There was no malicious intent surrounding it at all. It’s obviously unfortunate and unlucky.”
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Ireland had hoped to travel to Rome on the cusp of an historic third consecutive Six Nations title.
But Simon Easterby’s side are now in danger of finishing third on the back of a first home loss in the competition in four years.
Ireland must win at Stadio Olimpico and then hope second-placed England and table-topping France slip up against Wales and Scotland respectively.
“It’s obviously not easy moving on from a game like that,” Porter said of the France match.
“You can’t dwell on the past too much. But you’d be lying to yourself if you said you weren’t still thinking of that game.
“It was just a few small mistakes on the day really. We’re not going to let something like that shake us.
“We know exactly who we are as players and as a team. We know exactly what we can do, it just didn’t click for us on Saturday.
“If anything, it’s emboldened us to go out and produce the rugby we can play.
“We’re not out of the competition completely yet. It’s everything to play for. We get to go out and play this weekend and right a few wrongs.”
