France 22 Scotland 13:WHATEVER THE upbeat assessment afterwards by the captain Mike Blair of a second, spirit-sapping defeat, Scotland's 2009 Six Nations lies in what any good tailor would call tatters.
If, as seems right, the Irish referee, George Clancy, is painted as a bumbling, tumbling villain for awarding France an illegal try in Paris on Saturday, it will serve only to disguise the structural weaknesses in a team moving tantalisingly to within reach of scaring the teams who will now finish above them, including Ireland at Murrayfield on 14 March and England in the final fixture the following Saturday at Twickenham.
Perhaps victory against the oldest of enemies will provide its historical balm: it is all the Scots have to look forward to now. Scotland played the greater part of what good rugby there was in a quick, ragged match at the Stade de France, yet were denied success by occasional poor judgment at the breakdown, which contributed to the hefty 15-7 penalty count in favour of the French, and a staggering mistake by Clancy.
That is not to say they would have won had the referee seen the blatant forward pass from Maxime Medard to Fulgence Ouedraogo in the 46th minute - or Ouedraogo’s crossing to get in such a position to score from short range in the first place, with Clancy inelegantly scrambling about on the turf and clearly unsighted.
The Scotland coach, Frank Hadden, was adamant that Medard’s pass was “clearly forward“; the television replay and most of the 82,000 spectators supported that view. The question of obstruction by France’s rampaging flanker, easily the man of the match, was harder to be certain about.
France had an edge in physicality, which told at the end. Again the incomparable Imanol Harinordoquy was a towering presence and Lionel Nallet a quietly ruthless leader. Yet in no sense did the injustice of their try serve the result well.
Was Blair annoyed that this was a win lost? “I don’t know about annoyed,” he said, “certainly frustrated. We had a team that could come here and win a Test match and I think that, over the 80 minutes, we showed we were well capable of doing that.
We control what we can. I didn’t think we got the rub of the green and it seems to be that it’s very easy to penalise Scotland. You know . . . you saw it, I saw it.
“But for a couple of bad off-load decisions, a couple of decisions at the breakdown, whether to commit, and giving away a couple of easy penalties... We made two clean breaks up the middle, and got turned over. So, the team who’ve done all the work, you’ve lost the ball because that breakdown is all to the advantage of the defending team. It’s just about reacting. We had guys who were reading each other differently. We had some guys staying out wide, waiting for the big, long pass.”
When they clicked inside, they stunned France. Thom Evans’s try inside the final 10 minutes was an efficient finish to yet another step-and-run by the lively Phil Godman.
France, beaten in Dublin, acknowledged they have edged back into the title picture despite their own mistakes here, avoiding a defeat their coach, Marc Lievremont, had earlier said would be “true humiliation“; the Scots, beaten at Murrayfield, now contemplate a dead tournament.
Guardian Service
FRANCE: Poitrenaud, Medard, Baby, Jauzion, Heymans, Beauxis, Tillous-Borde, Barcella, Szarzewski, Mas, Millo-Chulski, Nallet, Dusautoir, Ouedraogo, Harinordoquy. Replacements: Mermoz for Baby (59), Parra for Tillous-Borde (67), Kayser for Szarzewski (55), Boyoud for Mas (41), Chabal for Millo-Chulski (59), Picamoles for Harinordoquy (70). Not used: Malzieu.
SCOTLAND: Southwell, Danielli, M Evans, Morrison, T Evans, Godman, Blair, Jacobsen, Ford, Dickinson, White, J Hamilton, Strokosch, Taylor, Barclay. Replacements: Paterson for Danielli (66), De Luca for Morrison (73), Cusiter for Blair (73), Hall for Ford (66), Low for Dickinson (46), Brown for J Hamilton (18). Not used: Gray.
Referee: George Clancy (IRFU).
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