Darge urges Scotland to match French physicality

Rory Darge expects a big reaction from France after their opening-night jitters in the Six Nations and has urged Scotland to match the visitors’ physicality at Murrayfield today.

Fabien Galthie’s side turned in an uncharacteristically error-strewn performance in losing 38-17 at home to Ireland last Friday and received a filleting from the French press. France clearly missed Antoine Dupont, as any side would, and his replacement Maxime Lucu endured a difficult evening in Marseille.

But Darge was at pains to point out that the 2022 Grand Slam champions have many more strings to their bow.

“I think they’ve got loads of talent outside of Antoine Dupont,” said Darge, who will co-captain Scotland alongside Finn Russell. “He’s obviously a quality, quality player and I actually think he helps marshal the power game that they have. But they’re all used to it, they’ve been in that environment for long enough and I’m not expecting anything less than what they’ve shown in the last couple of years.

“I think we’ll see a reaction after last week and I think 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 physical side of things is something we’ve really talked about. You have to get it right against them. Once they get that roll on with the power game then they’ve got the quality outside of that to cause issues.”

Darge missed Scotland’s win over Wales last weekend as he completed his