Dominant France outplay shabby Scots at Murrayfield

Published on Sunday 3 February 2008 17:18

The light of the end of the tunnel many foresaw for Scotland's rugby team turned out to be an on-rushing train as a lacklustre performance brought a 6 - 27 defeat by new look France.

Compounding the Murrayfield misery is the fact that there could be citing problems ahead of the visit to Wales on Saturday for centre Andy Henderson who was caught on camera head-butting Damien Traille in the aftermath of the first of three French tries.

Coach Frank Hadden will be anxiously awaiting any developments while pondering the wisdom of omitting star goal-kicker Chris Paterson; it is arguably the case that things began to go badly wrong in 20 minutes when alternative choice Dan Parks blundered badly and almost immediately France went up to the other end and scored their second try.

In this second consecutive try-less performance from Scotland at Murrayfield if there was an element of controversy about the opening French touchdown then the second contained pure farce.

In the first instance it seemed a pass from Cedric Heymens to scorer Vincent Clerc had gone forward quite apart from the winger appearing guilty of a double-movement in reaching out for the line.

As for the second try no danger seemed imminent when winger Julien Malzieu kicked through behind the Scots line but in attempting to fly-hack clear Parks spooned the ball up into the Frenchman's hands.

By this stage Parks' early drop goal – his fourth for Scotland – was a distant memory France having compounded the early try with a penalty from Traille.

Indeed the visitors could have been on easy street against a team whose woeful display was summed up in the final quarter when sub. Chris Cusiter knocked on over the line while an attacking line-out was fumbled and Simon Webster knocked on in promising position under little pressure out wide.

With half time approaching although Parks knocked over a penalty two simple misses by Elissalde provided let-offs Scotland didn't deserve.

Half time: Scotland 6, France 17

Any hope of an instant revival was dashed by a penalty from Traille and in truth the Soots had been living dangerously as shown when De Luca knocked on in the shadow of his own posts.

Scotland survived that scare but the third quarter elapsed without them having visited their opponents "22".

It was around this time that coach Frank Hadden began to use his bench in a desperate attempt to find a spark.

To the loudest cheer of the afternoon Chris Paterson emerged but before the 82 cap stalwart could exert any influence from stand off France struck for their third try.

Again the scorer was Clerc as he chipped through and grabbed a kindly bounce to run through and render the conversion a formality for sub. David Skrela.

With 66 minuts gone Scotland finally found a foothold near the visiting posts thanks to a Paterson break.

But again they were repelled and the disjointed-ness continued to the end when Henderson broke into space then had his pass to the oveflapping Nikki Walker, a rare Scottish success, was intercepted by a retreating defence.

Scorers:

Scotland

Drop goal – Parks

Penalty – Parks

France

Tries – Clerc (2), Malzieu

Conversions – Traille, Elissalde (2)

Penalties – Traille(2)

Teams

Scotland – Lamont, Walker, De Luca, Henderson, Webster, Parks, Blair, Jacobsen, Ford, Murray, Hines, Hamilton, White, captain, Callam, Barclay.

Subs. alll used – Thomson, Kerr, MacLeod, Brown, Cusiter, Paterson, Southwell.

France – Heymans, Clerc, Marty, Traille, Malzieu, Trinh-Duc, Elisalde, Faure, Servat, Brungnaut, Jacquet, Nallet, captain, Dusautoir, Vermeulen, Ouedraogo.

Subs. all used – Szarzewski, Mas, Mela, Bonnaire, Parra, Skrela, Rougerie.

Referee – A Rolland (Ireland).