France cut loose to punish flawed Scotland
Nice’s famous seafront Avenue des Anglais is a testament to the fact this opulent Provencal resort town came to prominence by welcoming posh English tourists. Last night, the greeting it extended to a bunch of Scottish visitors on a balmy Riviera evening was significantly less warm.
It is important to bear in mind this was an experimental selection, but from first to last this was a car crash of a performance from Gregor Townsend’s surprisingly lacklustre Scotland. Missed tackles, dropped passes, lost line-outs and a brutalised scrum were just the most obvious “work-ons” as they say endlessly in the business.
Barely a month out from the World Cup opener against Ireland in Yokohama, this five-try beasting was a spectacularly bad day at the office.
It went wrong from the start, as Scotland began disastrously. Wing Byron McGuigan failed to field the kick-off, and then captain Stuart McInally overthrew by a country mile at the subsequent line-out. France claimed the ball and quickly went through the phases before, with 1min 40secs on the clock, centre Wesley Fofana popped the ball inside for charging former Fijian debutant Alivereti Raka to pile through John Barclay’s despairing last-ditch tackle and put France 5-0 ahead. Less than two minutes were on the board by the time Camille Lopez added the extras.
Scotland, though, were soon on the front foot, and as long as they moved the big French pack around they looked slick and in control. However, a lack of accuracy and patience, especially from Adam Hastings, who put through a delicate but ill-timed grubber kick into France’s 22 when Scotland were just beginning to build up a head of steam, ensured their good work came to naught.
But there were clear signs they needed to exercise caution, especially when the French forwards got their offloading game going. New Zealand recovered from their record Test defeat to thrash Australia 36-0 in Auckland.
Australia had beaten the All Blacks 47-26 seven days earlier, the heaviest defeat in their history. But it was a different story at Eden Park as Richie Mo’unga scored 14 points and New Zealand retained the Bledisloe Cup.
Argentina, meanwhile, were denied just a second victory away to South Africa when a try with three minutes to go was disallowed.
The next score came from the Scots’ other Achilles’ heel: their scrum. The home pack had already marmalised the Scots at the first scrum, and at the second they shunted back the boys in fetching sky blue backwards, Lopez kicking the resulting penalty. Fifteen minutes in, props Jamie Bhatti and Simon Berghan must have been dreading the video debrief.
Despite the Scots enjoying plenty of possession and making regular forays into French territory, the scoreboard went from bad to worse as the game entered its second quarter. French fullback Maxime Medard had already had one try chalked off for crossing, but when the ball fell loose just outside Scotland’s 22 and Gael Fickou dived on it, the ball was swiftly moved left. France had a three-man overlap but did not need it, Medard piling through a powder-puff tackle from Stuart Hogg to score in the corner.
Hastings got Scotland off the mark with a long penalty after France infringed from the restart, but with the home side now 15-3 ahead they began to boss proceedings, as they did in Paris in the Six Nations.
Hastings was yellow-carded for a deliberate try-preventing knock-on down the blindside, with the French driving over from the subsequent line-out. This time the try-scorer was Gregor Alldritt, who must have a strange family dynamic – his father is a Scot yet the No 8 scored two tries against Townsend’s men off the bench in the Six Nations and added another here.
Scotland’s response to a 20-3 halftime deficit was to bring Zander Fagerson on at loosehead, shove the ball up their collective jerseys and keep it tight. Not that it was a tactic that could last long, but it did at least allow them to work their way into the game.
France, though, always felt just a half-break away from a try, and when blindside Francois Cros broke through and drew the last man, Medard galloped over for his second try.
Although Scotland then brought on a raft of replacements – giving Test debuts to Rory Hutchinson and Scott Cummings – it was soon business as usual. With France’s tails up and tackling looking like an optional extra for the visitors, everyone was keen to have a go. Damien Penaud was next, the wing skipping through Matt Fagerson’s attempted tackle before feeding Antoine Dupont for the scrum-half to go under the posts. With Lopez adding the extras, Scotland trailed by 29 points.
Just what this means for Saturday’s return at Murrayfield is anyone’s guess.