Sam Johnson is impressed with France’s young half-backs Antoine Dupont and Romain N’tamack but won’t get “overstressed” about the opposition going into Sunday’s meeting with the Grand Slam chasers.
France have advanced at pace from the team that showed promise but ultimately shot themselves in the foot as so often before during the Rugby World Cup, and with victory in Cardiff a week ago are the only team left with a chance of the ultimate Six Nations prize.
A lot of that has to do with their half-backs, who have moved their partnership with Toulouse into the national shirts with some aplomb, and Johnson saw plenty of them last year – they first teamed up for France against Scotland in Paris in the Six Nations, and there were also two World Cup warm-up games home and away.
“Obviously they are a really good side and playing really well at the moment,” said the Glasgow centre. “They’re mostly young and have a good coaching staff who are bringing out the best of all their attributes.
“You look at Toulouse especially in the top 14, with Dupont and Ntamack together: they are through to the quarter-finals and they are playing some really good rugby at the moment. They are also together for France and will come out all guns blazing.
“I’m not surprised by them doing so well, it doesn’t take much to switch thing around. They are full or form and confidence and that goes a long way towards playing some good rugby.”
N’tamack is the son of Emile, the thoroughbred wing/centre of the 1990s, and is still only 20 but had a brilliant game in Cardiff.
“He was a finalist for European player of the year last year,” pointed out Johnson. “He’s controlling the team really well at 10 and his relationship with Dupont is really good. They are electric players, full of confidence and full of form.
“We haven’t studied their game much yet but we will do in detail, just to get an idea of a fdew things they’ve been trying to do.
“But we look after ourselves, and I think that’s something we’ve done really well over these first few weeks because we haven’t been overstressed about what the opposition are doing.”
Johnson feels this is the best atmosphere he’s experienced in Scotland camp since he first came into it 18 months ago.
“It’s definitely the best environment that I’ve been in during my time with Scotland,” he said. “I think we’re turning a page to playing some good rugby and getting the results.
“Obviously, we have a new defensive system with Steve Tandy, so we are trying to get that in place and it has been working really well so far.
“I think it has been a really good thing in the camp so far that we have been building relationships. There are no cliques, nothing like that. We are a really strong unit and we are trying to do our best to progress.”
