The French farce could have ended so much earlier

THE farce that unfolded in Paris last Saturday, culminating in almost 20 minutes of added time was a perfect storm.

It combined skulduggery by coaches and players, and a referee, Wayne Barnes, with a marked reluctance to award a penalty try, but who otherwise kept his cool remarkably well.

The farce saw an inferior Welsh scrum – which had been dismantled by France for most of the match – duck and dive to survive a fifth quarter in which nine five metre scrums were awarded to the French. It saw Barnes tackle a French medic after the home side pulled a fast one by taking Uini Atonio off with a supposed head injury, and reintroducing Rabah Slimani, their best tighthead. It saw him scupper an unsuccessful Welsh attempt at retaliation after Samson Lee was yellowcarded, with Scott Baldwin lined-up to come on instead of Thomas Francis so that scrums would be uncontested.

We also witnessed an unproven claim that George North had been bitten, with no TMO evidence to corroborate it. The claims by both sides that the other lot were cheating were certainly true, but no one was able to claim the high ground.

The proceedings should have come to a halt before Damien Chouly’s 99th minute try, because the French scrum shunted Wales back so conclusively – with the Welsh front row forced to dive in to avoid conceding a pushover – that a penalty try should have been awarded on at least two occasions after Nicky Smith came on for Rob Evans in the 96th minute.

However, the inexperienced Smith should have been forced into action after only eight minutes of added time when Evans merited a yellow card for a deliberate scrum collapse. In which case a penalty try would have been on the cards much earlier, and the farce nipped in the bud.