The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Coach blames shock loss on the bagpipers
France head coach Fabien Galthie has blamed his team’s defeat at Murrayfield on Scottish bagpipers and his team’s delayed bus journey to the ground.
Galthie has become the latest to use the traditional routines of the capital stadium as an excuse for a poor performance.
Ahead of this year’s Calcutta Cup match, England’s Eddie Jones insisted the tradition of piping the coaches from the road to the changing rooms is a deliberate ploy to slow their arrival and unsettle visitors.
Scotland wrecked France’s Grand Slam hopes with a surprise 28-17 victory on Sunday.
And, as well as the red card for prop Mohamed Haouas and the loss to injury of the pivotal Romain Ntamack, Galthie believes his players failed to recover from interruptions to their usual pre-match preparations as they crashed to defeat.
Asked to explain the unexpected defeat, he said: “We found some answers.
“Already, there is the delay. We had to be at the stadium an hour and a half before the match.
“We arrived an hour and 10 before. It made the players panic a lot.
“Then there was the madness around the team.
“We managed to anticipate everything – the Stade de France, Cardiff – but in Edinburgh, the bus for a quarter of an hour was in the midst of the delirious crowd, with the bagpipes.
“We did not explain that well to the players.
“When we got off the bus, (defence coach) Shaun Edwards said to me: ‘I have never experienced that. We must quickly talk about tactics (to the players).
“I asked a lot of players, but they said to me: ‘We’re ready, it’s great!’
“But, no. This madness was not too much – but it was too much for us to manage it.”