Saturday 7 February 2015 23:32, UK
France battled to a hard earned 15-8 win over Scotland in their Six Nations clash at the Stade de France.
Scotland scored the only try of the game – through Dougie Fife while France relied on the boot of Camille Lopez for all their points.
Despite only one try being scored, this was a highly entertaining game as Scotland frustrated France in both attack and defence with Finn Russell putting in a superb performance for the visitors.
France showed the best of their game at times – massive power and some beautiful running lines and offloads. However they could not make the pressure tell with Scotland’s defence scrambling well to hold on and France had to rely on three Lopez penalties to give them a 9-8 lead at the break.
Scotland had clawed back three points through a massive Stuart Hogg penalty before Dougie Fife scored the only try of the first half.
The power game
France ramped up the power game even more in the second half and should have made more of several driving mauls, however Scotland kept them out but did concede a scrum penalty which Lopez duly converted to make it 12-8.
Scotland’s job got even harder when John Beattie was yellow carded for pulling down a superb driving maul from Les Bleus – who possibly should have been awarded a penalty try.
France could still not break down Scotland who stepped up their resistance with 14-men and even got a driving maul of their own going that had France scrambling back in defence.
France were soon back on top though and looked to have scored their first try in the 70th minute after replacement hooker Benjamin Kayser’s long pass out wide – that was almost intercepted by Tim Vissser – found winger Yoann Huget. With Visser out of the picture, Huget raced into space and beat Hogg, and looked certain to score. However Bennett’s last ditch tackle dislodged the ball from the French winger's hands and denied France their first try.
With the clock running down Scotland threw everything into attack but miscommunication between Hogg and Bennett allowed France to hack the ball out of their 22 and put the pressure back on Scotland.
France then won a penalty and Lopez landed his fifth penalty for a hard earned 15-8 win.
