France’s defence coach is not used to watching one of his teams concede 50 points in a Test match but that’s what happened in Scotland v France
France defence coach Shaun Edwards(Image: ITV)
Shaun Edwards was left disappointed by France’s performance as the defence coach watched his team concede a remarkable 50 points against Scotland.
The unprecedented result saw the French ship seven tries as they were crushed at Murrayfield on a day when the Six Nations title race was blown wide open. The 50-40 defeat was a Six Nations classic as 13 tries were scored in total.
Edwards chose not to tear into his players, though, revealing he had an inkling of what was coming when he turned up at the stadium.
Speaking to ITV after the match, Edwards said: “It’s obviously very disappointing. We’re disappointed in our own performance. We gave a lot of penalties away and as we said before the game, discipline was going to be very important.
“The last three games the defence has been excellent and we have all been helping each other.
“When I turned up here today, and I saw the state of the pitch and the weather and the quality of opponent, I knew there would be a lot of points out there.”
Asked to clarify his pitch comment, Edwards said: “The pitch was so good, so fast, so quick. It’s like a lot of modern day pitches. It’s one of the reasons there are so many points being scored in modern rugby because the pitches are just a different level to what they were 15/20 years ago.
“I just think it’s the state of modern day rugby. It was like watching Super Rugby, wasn’t it? Hardly any contest at the ruck from both teams, whoever had the ball was scoring try after try. You know, a lot of fans want to watch that kind of rugby, don’t they?
“I think it was a matter of whoever had possession was scoring tries and the possession stats at half time were 70% to Scotland and 30% to us. It’s very difficult to be winning with only 30% of possession.”
Despite the result, France remain in pole position to win the Six Nations. A bonus point win will secure the trophy and any sort of win will be enough as long as Scotland don’t beat Ireland with a bonus point in Dublin.
Edwards added: “We’re still the favourites to win the title because we have a home game against England. We just have to look after our own game, get a four point win in the first place and hopefully we’ll be ok.”
Head coach Fabien Galthie said: “We are disappointed. We wanted to do much better. We were very ambitious so we understand the disappointment of our fans. We share it.
“But we’re in a race to win the competition. We have a game in Paris. Saturday night at the Stade de France. We know we have to go through this.”
The Scots’ hopes of contending in this season’s championship looked to be over after they lost their first match away to Italy on February 7.
But a month on from that dismal day in the rain-lashed Eternal City, they find themselves preparing to head to Ireland next weekend with all to play for after following up their victories over England and Wales with this epic seven-try 50-40 triumph over France at Murrayfield.
The result leaves the Scots behind the table-topping French only on points difference and two points ahead of the Irish.
Head coach Gregor Townsend said: “I think we probably wouldn’t have thought we’d be in this position after the first match.
“To get bonus points against some quality teams, England and France were probably in the top three in the world coming into this tournament, certainly when they played us.
“So to get four and seven tries and get maximum points against them was great.
“We’ve given ourselves an opportunity. It’s not all in our hands because France will play after us. We’ll just make sure we target that Ireland game and do all we can to win and see what happens after.”