Townsend braced for backlash from France
RORY DARGE has warned Scotland to expect a strong reaction from France at Murrayfield this afternoon — and insists only an 80-minute performance will be good enough.
The French are fragile and will be licking their wounds after a recordbreaking 38-17 defeat to Ireland in Marseille on opening night. They are also without their talisman Antoine Dupont, who is sitting out the Six Nations to prepare to play Sevens at the Olympics this summer.
Scotland got their campaign up and running with a nerve-shredding 27-26 victory over Wales in Cardiff last weekend, a Jekyll and Hyde performance from Gregor Townsend’s side, who clung on to win after leading 27-0 early in the second half.
And co-captain Darge insists any similar sort of drop-off will be fatal against the French.
Asked about the need to perform from start to finish, Darge said: ‘Yeah, we’re massively aware.
‘Those are the messages we get in most games, to play every moment. It’s easy to say and hard to do, but it’s the mindset we need to have.
‘We have to be in every moment. It’s not just in attack that France have that threat. They’re a real jackal threat — at almost every ruck they have a go.
‘Being on it for 80 minutes is more difficult than it might seem but that’s definitely the challenge and what we need to do. France are going to have a big reaction after last week. They’ll probably be disappointed with the result and the way they played as well, so they’ll definitely come to show what they’re about.’
Given the absence of Dupont and fly-half Romain Ntamack, the expectation is that France might look to overpower Scotland up front, having bullied them into submission in the past. But Darge insists the Scots are ready to match the French ‘physically and emotionally’.
‘They’ve got loads of talent outside of Dupont,’ said Darge. ‘We’ll see a reaction after last week and they’ll use their power game with lots of physicality and emotion.
‘We can’t worry too much about that, we just have to concentrate on our physicality, our emotion and getting that right. The physicality side is something we’ve talked about. You have to get it right against them.’