The greatest double acts roll off the tongue.Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Morecambe and Wise, Lennon and McCartney.It’s the same in sport: Lillee and Thomson, Torvill and Dean, Redgrave and Pinsent.After a while their individual talents complement each other so perfectly it becomes hard to mention one without the other.Which is what is now happening on the rugby fields of Europe.

For Butch and Sundance read Antoine Dupont and Matthieu Jalibert, the creative partnership behind a France team weaving the prettiest of Six Nations patterns.Between them “Jalipont” are helping to fashion some of the most spectacular attacking rugby anyone could wish for.And to think people thought it might not work.That the parallel club universes of Toulouse and Bordeaux-Beglès, like star-crossed lovers, could never be intertwined.Instead, we could just be witnessing one of the great sporting collaborations, an example of what is possible when two shimmering individual talents mesh together and subvert their egos for the common good.

The 54-12 victory in Cardiff on Sunday offered further compelling proof.Dupont has understandably taken a little while to rediscover his top form after his serious knee injury but remains a quality operator at scrum-half.Outside him, Jalibert, finally granted an extended starting run by head coach Fabien Galthié, is thriving in the grandmaster flash role at 10 in a team increasingly as watchable as any on the planet.Of France’s eight tries the pair were involved in six in some shape or form.Dupont’s crafty little reverse flick down the blindside helped to launch the visitors’ early score by Émilien Gailleton and the half-backs then combined smartly to give Jalibert the platform to deliver a perfect cross-kick to Louis Bielle-Biarrey for the second.

Subsequently Jalibert scored one himself, delivered an artful little inside ball to put the debutant Fabien Brau-Boirie away for his score and contributed another punted assist, this time to Théo Attissogbe,And even though Charles Ollivon’s final try ended up as a close-range lunge, with the clever Baptiste Serin now at scrum-half, who could overlook the delicious little chip and regather by Jalibert earlier in the buildup?In that moment, as he moved left, slippered the ball delicately over the top with his right boot and accelerated past the flat-footed cover to catch it on the full, the French maestro resembled a player revered by older Welsh audiences,When the muse is with him there is a touch of the Jonathan Davies about the way he first toys with defences before burning them off as well,When you combine that with Dupont keeping the opposition honest around the rucks, the perpetual motion of Ollivon, France’s collective lineout ability, Thomas Ramos’s goal-kicking and the thrilling ability of Bielle-Biarrey out wide, you have a team that must be a total joy to play in,As their assistant coach, Shaun Edwards, said afterwards: “If you’re paying to watch them you’ll get your money’s worth.

”A word for Wales here: at times there was little they could have done, as was also true for Ireland in round one.Sometimes you simply have to tip the chapeau to a superior force.The really scary bit, though, is that France could merely be getting started.If it stays dry – and even if it doesn’t – they are looming as a serious handful for everyone unless Italy’s powerful scrum somehow stops them at source this weekend.A dual half-back threat of such high quality is also relatively rare in the international game.

France’s catalysts have mostly always worn the No 9 jersey; even in their 1970s and 80s heyday their best fly-halves, such as Jean-Patrick Lescarboura or Jean-Pierre Romeu, were largely picked for their kicking prowess.The greatest 9-10 combos have often come from elsewhere – Gareth Edwards in tandem with Barry John and Phil Bennett for Wales, Aaron Smith and Dan Carter for New Zealand, George Gregan and Stephen Larkham for the Wallabies.The last pair shared an incredible 78 Tests together and grew to know each other’s games inside out.“You throw it, I’ll catch it,” also applied to Alessandro Troncon and Diego Domínguez, who were paired for Italy on 53 occasions.By comparison Jalipont is still a relatively recent axis.

Jalibert is now 27 but the blossoming of his Test career has been delayed by injuries, selection vagaries and the presence of the excellent Romain Ntamack, Dupont’s half-back partner at Toulouse.Ntamack’s latest injury has finally unlocked the door and Jalibert has burst through it with the air of a man who knows it is probably now or never.While it can be argued that France are not yet sustaining their absolute best for 80 minutes, you can also see why their coaches are granting them free licence to thrill.Why on earth would you keep a lid on a side that, on Sunday, conjured 21 offloads in the first 40 minutes alone?Best of all, France can now keep opponents guessing.If Dupont wants to cajole his forwards to hit a few more breakdowns and suck in more defenders, that’s fine.

If he wants to snipe past an unsuspecting defensive guard, good news.It continually gives Jalibert plenty of time to scan for opportunities in the wider channels.Having two petits généraux on the field simultaneously can be invaluable if both innately understand what is best for their team.So catch them if you can, starting against the Italians in Paris on Sunday.There may be tougher days ahead for France’s answer to Ant & Dec – Antoine and Dec? – at some stage.

But give them quick ball and half a yard of space, and double trouble awaits all their Six Nations rivals.This is an extract taken from our weekly rugby union email, the Breakdown.To sign up, just visit this page and follow the instructions.