It was a Gallic lesson in how to be ruthless

COACHING legend Ian McGeechan used to talk about the ‘championship minutes’ in Test matches either side of half-time being so important — and they killed Scotland in this defeat to a very good French side. France, as they seem to do in every game now, started very strongly at BT Murrayfield and when they were 12-3 up after just 13 minutes, a lot of the home fans would have feared the worst.

The break by Antoine Dupont for their first try, eventually scored by Paul Willemse, showed why many people think he is the best player in the world right now and their offloading game was really clicking.

Scotland managed to get back into things in the ‘second half’ of the first half, though, and a try on his first start by Rory Darge lifted the whole stadium.

It lifted his team-mates too and the Scots looked for all the money in the world that they were going to go ahead just before half-time.

Chris Harris ran a great line and, in hindsight, perhaps should have straightened up and then chosen the shorter pass to Ali Price because the French defence was stretched and Scotland had an overlap.

Instead, he chose the wider pass out to Stuart Hogg and, although the pass was perhaps not perfect, it is one that Hoggy would have caught 99 times out of 100.

He dropped it, the Scottish heads went down and France showed their ruthlessness by scoring their third try of the day with the clock in the red after 40 minutes.

Gael Fickou spotted the space and did well to finish the try off, but Price got his tackle all wrong and he needs to try and be stronger in defence at times because he is an experienced player now. Even if he had slowed Fickou up, it might have allowed Nick Haining to stop him, but that wasn’t the case.

What could have been 15-12 or 17-12 to Scotland at the break was now 19-10 to France and when Jonathan Danty scored his try almost straight after the interval it was suddenly 26-10.

Scotland were chasing the game after that and France showed why All Black great Sean Fitzpatrick said at the Bill McLaren Dinner in Edinburgh on Friday that they are the best team on the planet right now.

They are so clinical, have so many different facets to their game and, at times, Scotland just could not cope, especially in the contact area.

We were penalised there time after time and we really felt the losses of Jonny Gray, Jamie Ritchie and Hamish Watson in that area.

There is no doubt that Scotland are a good team — and a team that has massively improved since the World Cup in 2019 — but this result was a bit of a reality check in terms of where we are in the current pecking order.

France, South Africa and New Zealand are in the top tier at the moment and we are in the group of countries behind that trying to keep up. To beat sides like France we need to have all our best players available and be firing on all cylinders, while we have to play with accuracy — and we just didn’t manage that for a full 80 minutes in this one.

The squad now have a fortnight to regroup ahead of the Italy game. We should be able to go to Rome and win and then we have to try and go to Ireland and get a victory in Dublin for the first time in 12 years.

One bright spark for Scotland was the performance of Darge (below). He has just turned 22, but he looked at home in the Test rugby environment and he was not fazed by the challenge. He has a bright future.

I would just like to congratulate head coach Bryan Easson, captain Rachel Malcolm and the Scotland squad for making it to the women’s World Cup. Working in education now and having daughters, I know how important it is for young girls to have strong female role models — and this squad has them in abundance.

They have had to work hard to get to the big event in New Zealand later this year and, on Friday, after she was named player of the match in the final qualifier in Dubai, Louise McMillan spoke so well about this team focusing on legacy and inspiring the next generation.

She also touched on how close-knit the squad is following the passing of their team-mate Siobhan Cattigan a few months ago and this group of players

has real heart.