ENGLAND WERE CROWNED Six Nations champions after Scotland shattered France’s title hopes with a pulsating 29-18 victory at Murrayfield on Sunday.
Les Bleus needed a win to have any chance of denying England the title, but Scotland ended a 10 match-losing run against France stretching back a decade and ensured the destination of the trophy will not hinge on next Saturday’s showdown in Paris.
A fine try from captain Guilhem Guirado gave France an early lead, but quickfire scores from Stuart Hogg and Duncan Taylor stunned Guy Noves’ side after the recalled Francois Trinh-Duc missed a conversion and a penalty.
Gael Fickou went over to cut Scotland’s lead to 18-12 at half-time, but Tim Visser scored the only try of the second half to give Scotland back-to-back wins and ensure fierce rivals England can head to the French capital with the title in the bag.
France were devoid of flair in their defeat to Wales last time out, but took only four minutes to show what they are capable of as Fickou made the break and Guirado rounded off a slick attack which moved from left to right.
Trinh-Duc was unable to add the extras and also missed a penalty he really ought to have slotted over after Scotland lost Finn Russell to a head injury, with Peter Horne replacing him.
A simple Laidlaw penalty got Scotland on the board and he edged them in front from the tee 21 minutes in after France were penalised at the scrum.
France looked far more dangerous, but handling errors halted their momentum and they were made to pay when Scotland scored two tries in the space of three minutes late in the first half.
First the impressive Horne broke through before feeding Richie Gray and Hogg was on hand to finish, then Taylor took a quick tap penalty and burst away to go over in the corner.
The try was allowed to stand despite Wenceslas Lauret’s shirt being tugged in the build-up by Laidlaw, who converted having missed from the tee following Hogg’s score.
However, Fickou barged his way over and Maxime Machenaud converted to cut the gap to six points just before the break.
Hogg nailed a penalty from over 50 metres out early in the second half, but two Machenaud three-pointers allowed France to trim the deficit to 21-18 and the visitors would almost certainly have been level had Guirado not opted to go for the corner rather than a kick at goal.
But Visser stunned France by touching down in the corner following a sublime no-look pass from Hogg and Laidlaw added another penalty to seal Scotland’s first home win in the Six Nations for three years.
How did we lose to that French team?
Lack of bench impact particularly in the backline
We lost because our scrum got mullered out of it in the second half
Agreed Seán. We also tried to play a wide game in the pissings of rain, when a tactical kicking game was clearly required.
France are shite, and going to get worse as the Boujadelal’s fcuk the national team by filling their Top 14 teams with SHers.
They were so bad but we did not win?
Uh oh. A confident Scotland
Countered by a confident Ireland. Nicely set up.
Fair play to them they lost last two on points difference and were the best this season. Bar has been raised again for everyone
Well done Scotland. Nice brand of rugby. Where are those spouting rubbish about how bad Scotland are and that we should throw in a load of debutants? Tough game next weekend that we need to win.
Why do we need to win it tho? Nothing at stake
Ah yeh sure we’ll just decide to lose the game. That’s always good entertainment.
Around a million give or take to secure third spot.
Possibly more to gain from trying out new players than winning with the tried and trusted. You reckon joe Schmidt is concerned about prize money?
Barry, Schmidt’s employers are very concerned with prize money so he has to be also. An extra €1m is a big deal to Irish rugby.
You reckon the IRFU are influencing Schmidt’s selection Brian?
Barry, world ranking points are at stake in a RWC seeding year. Ireland are currently 7th (Scotland are 9th) with a very tough year of games ahead. If Ireland fall out of the worlds top 8 by the end of this year, we’ll find ourselves in a pool with 2 of the big guys in RWC 2019. That’s what happened with Wales for RWC 2015.
So if Ireland beat Scotland this will help keep us above them.
Therefore, next weeks game has plenty to play for and a result cannot be taken for granted.
Barry – no, I would very much doubt that the IRFU have any say over Schmidt’s selections. They do, however, set his objectives and judge him against those objectives. One of those will be to finish as high in the 6N table as possible. There is no precedent in recent Irish rugby where bloody young players is favoured over winning 6N matches.
Mary Lou – excellent point. When you take into account that our post 6N games in 2016 are against SA (x3, away, where we have never won once), NZ (x2, who of course we have never beaten) and Aus then the chances of us dropping out of the top 8 are very high indeed. We really do need to win next week for RWC19 seeding: what an absurd system!
Why do we need to win? Jesus! Along with what has been discussed, like rankings and money, we just got some confidence back. We need to keep building on that and get even more precise. Throwing in young lads won’t help the scrum and lineout that have regained confidence. Throwing in young lads won’t help the defence, which is dangerously fragile. Blooding players is happening and they are nicely gaining experience and confidence, and more will certainly follow, but winning is the key to that.
Brian, consider also Scotland only play two games in the summer and 3 in the autumn it means we really have to get a result Saturday, pick up at least 1 win in the summer and again in autumn so I think Schmidt will stick with the tried and tested. I’ve been calling for changes and I still think he should give McCloskey another shot next weekend but completely changing the team will probably be out of the question. I’d love to see Gilroy on the bench too but I think Kearney is going to come back in and Zebo will drop to the bench.
Kieran – those two summer tests for Scotland (currently ranked 9th, to our 7th) are away in Japan, which is not the easy game it once was but sure as hell ain’t as hard as beating the Boks in the Highveld. They then have Australia, Argentina and Georgia at home in the autumn.
France (8th) seem to only have two post-6N tests lined up in 2016 (yet another sign of the power of their clubs at the expense of the national team): SA at home(ish – in Manchester, bizarrely) in the summer, Australia in Paris in November. Their lack of games might actually work in their favour re RWC seeding.
I really wish the RWC seeding was done at the end of the previous calendar season: e.g. RWC19 seeding decided at the end the 2018 Quad Nations, at the end of October. That still gives everyone (organisers, teams, supporters) almost a full year’s notice.
Headline says unlikely scots,bit unfair seen as they were actual favourites for this game!
Get in! never thought I would see the day Scotland help England.
Show biz we won’t beat Scotland , we ran riot against an appalling Italian side that would have beaten France only for a refs decision that was so incompetent it beggared belief
Scotland are definitely improving under Cotter, who is an outstanding coach. As mentioned above, they were screwed by Craig “flee the scene” Joubert against Oz at RWC.
The reality is, though, that they are a well drilled side who have plenty of good players, but only one or two excellent ones. If both sides play to their potential again – as they did this weekend – we are still a considerably better team, individual and collectively.
It should be a great match but I would expect us to win. Scrum will be key, I think. I also wouldn’t expect many changes from yesterday’s team, and certainly no radical ones (eg. Jackson).
It will be interesting to see how the Irish bench performs against the Scottish bench. Given that this game is likely to come down to the last quarter.
Interesting game next week. Both sides going in on back of wins. Home advantage should help. Would be nice to end on a win. Let’s just support whoever is in the squad.
Keep the faith declan,100%we will win next week
Rowan I hope you are correct but the Scott’s will be full of confidence after beating France
Gonna be a great game next week. Delighted to see Scotland doing well to be honest, they were robbed at the world cup. Whatever happens both sets of fans will have a great time together.
Highly unlikely but its still possible Ireland can finish second:
Italy beat Wales
Ireland beat Scotland
England beat France
Would be an welcome and unexpected financial windfall for the IRFU.
Italy beat Wales…
Yeah…..
Still, its an extra dimension to think about for all of the 15 minutes it will take on Saturday before Wales make it obvious they’re going to win
Who knows: Italy usually have one big game in them each year. I thought they had already had that when they lost by 2 points in Paris, but after seeing how crap France are I wonder if they might just have a performance in them in Rome. Actually – I just checked, the game is in Cardiff. That’s that, so
Well, Im going to enjoy every one of those 15 minutes
And what a 15 minutes they could be: that first line break by Parisse, the lineout steal by Parisse, the no-look offload by Parisse, the kick return by Parisse, etc.
It’s proberly the worst six nations in years, fair play to Scotland .
What makes this championship worse than any of the others since 2007? This was the best weekend for a long time. There were plenty of great rugby in all three games
Did mike brown a favour there
Id actually take a loss blooding some more youth playing the way we did yesterday. But that won’t happen. Most likely they’ll tighten up and resort to type
makes for a tasty game next week.