HARSH reality caught up with wild optimism yesterday as Scotland's high hopes of success in this season's RBS Six Nations Championship were brought crashing back to earth by French ambition and Scottish indecision.
With Wales stunning England at
Twickenham and Ireland struggling to dispose of Italy in Dublin, many entered Murrayfield believing Scotland had a good chance to bounce back from the wooden spoon of 2007 with a challenge for the title. Painfully, there was even talk of grand slam potential.
Yet, by the final whistle Scotland's failure to exert real control on the game had grown in tandem with France's confidence, the errors of the first half and those of referee Alain Rolland having pushed the French into a position of command they never gave up.
By the hour mark, the solidity of the visitors' set-piece, control of the breakdown and decisiveness in attack would have had many believing this was the team who had played together for the past three years and the fractious Scots, from whom little went right, were the squad featuring six new caps and with barely a week's training behind them.
Dan Parks, the Scots stand-off, set the tone by sending his kick-off straight out, and though he opened the scoring in the third minute with a drop-goal and put in some fine touch-finders, and it was not his fault that ball was slow coming back, he was also complicit in failing to assert control.
The first of Rolland's poor decisions punctured early Scots momentum. Slick French passing just inside the Scottish half sent Vincent Clerc, the right wing, round the Scots defence on the outside. He fed Cedric Heymans and overran his full-back on the inside, but still was fed the ball by his teammate. Rolland missed that, and then ignored Clerc's leap forward two yards in De Luca's tackle to the try-line, awarding the score without recourse to the video technology on offer.
Bizarrely, he did ask the television match official for a ruling on the scrap which followed the try, and the replays showed Andy Henderson was fortunate not to mar his 50th cap with at least a yellow card after using his head to push opposite number Damien Traille. The Scotland centre was warned by Rolland and France restarted with a penalty. It may not be the last we hear of this incident.
Traille extended France's lead with a penalty from halfway, Parks missed a relatively simple penalty – no doubt forcing every Scot to think of Chris Paterson, the dropped goal-kicker – and then the Scots were hit again. Loic Jacquet, the lock, took a quick tap-penalty, typical of France's instinctive play, and fed debutant wing Julien Malzieu, who kicked ahead. Rory Lamont, the Scottish full-back, overran it and Parks sclaffed it up into Malzieu's hands, for an easy score behind the posts. With Jean-Baptiste Elissalde's second conversion the French were 17-3 after just 23 minutes.
Allan Jacobsen, Scotland's loosehead, made a storming break up the park, as the hosts again built promise, but their failure to retain possession was a hugely frustrating and debilitating feature of Scotland's play, and, combined with the work of the outstanding French back row, who slowed ball at will, allowed good work to evaporate.
Parks converted a second penalty when the French were penalised at a scrum on the half-hour mark and then delivered a 60-metre kick to touch five metres from the French line. The Scots also produced a great scrum which drove the French off their own ball but still they could not apply a finish.
France could have been out of sight by the break, but Elissalde missed two penalties, and a quick tap-penalty which ended with Lionel Nallet touching down was pulled back by Rolland, who wasn't ready. The half finished with Henderson pulling an opponent's jersey as he tried to take a quick tap, and was warned again by Rolland.
The Scottish camp required inspiration at half-time, but by then France had shaken off any early nerves and, the inexperienced men growing in stature, seized control of the game. France caught Scotland by surprise again by tightening up on the restart, and with more tight play, pick-and-gos, and an improving lineout and scrum, they effectively closed the door on Scottish attempts to find a way back.
Traille notched the vital first points of the second half with a penalty after successive scrum collapses, and the Scottish defence seemed to slip further back into its shell. Nick De Luca, having marred his debut with defence and tackle errors, showed what he can do in attack with a superb step out of his own 22 and off-load to Lamont. The full-back was almost clean away, but Julien Bonnaire had a hold of his jersey and brought him down. Scrum half Mike Blair was pulled into a ruck when another opening appeared, and the Scots were penalised.
The biggest cheer of the day came on the hour when Paterson was sent on for Parks at stand-off – he was even applauded as he warmed up – while Hugo Southwell replaced Lamont, who went off with a leg injury, which could threaten his chances of facing Wales.
The open nature of the game was set up for Paterson and, taking the ball flatter and running at France, he injected momentum to the final quarter. His side fell further behind, however, whenClerc chipped down the right touchline and gathered from a favourable bounce, which had beaten two defenders and Heymans, for another easy score, earning him the man-of-the-match award.
Paterson almost grabbed a consolation for Scotland, but was held just short of the line, and when Chris Cusiter dived for the line from a ruck, the ball was knocked from his grasp by Nallet's knee. That underlined the Scots' lack of luck, but when sides win they tell you 'we made our own luck'. This was a day when Scotland made and got nothing.
The full article contains 1021 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
