5 THINGS WE LEARNED...

1 RUGBY remains a game of hand-tohand combat. What an absolute battering this was, physically, for players on both sides. Few can live with France when they front up in such a fierce manner. The tackles made fans wince and there was little wonder Vern Cotter was forced to use all of his playing resources. The Scotland backroom staff must be worried about which elements of the walking wounded will be available to face Wales in a fortnight. 2 FRENCH indiscipline is alive and kicking with pulling, pushing, playing the ball on the deck, getting on the wrong side. Even if it wasn’t enough to tip the balance in Scotland’s favour it helped make for a quite fabulous encounter in a weekend when the Six Nations shone brightly. 3 WHEN you’re hot, you’re hot. Stuart Hogg scoring in his fourth successive Scotland appearance reinforces his reputation in attack. Defensively, there were moments when he struggled with Gael Fickou running at him although, at times, the Scottish rearguard worked heroically to keep the French at bay. 4 FINN RUSSELL, the mercurial genius at No10 that he is, has off days. This, sadly, was one of them. Hard to know what he was thinking with some of those offloads as he desperately tried to create the chaos Cotter had spoken about pre-match. Give him credit for trying something. Perhaps losing his partrner Greig Laidlaw so early in the match affected him. Needed a wise head around him. 5 SCOTLAND’S scrum will not stand up to the most intense pressure. They’ll give it a good go, even hold their own in brief spurts. But teams know it’s a weakness — and exploit it with glee. The massive French pack simply overpowered them for 80 minutes and it was no contest in the closing stages.