Head coach Vern Cotter admitted that the plan to soak up and drain the energy from France didn’t work as Scotland lost two captains and ultimately the chance of two wins to start a Six Nations for the first time in 21 years.
The Scots led briefly in Paris after Tim Swinson’s 45th minute try – although there was some controversy Finn Russell hurrying to take the conversion in front of the posts to stretch Scotland’s led to five points.
The stand-off topped his kick under the posts with some suggesting referee Jaco Peyper asked him to speed up but also suggestions that the Scottish coaches wanted the conversion taken quickly before a TMO intervention could be made.
In any case an extra two points would have made minimal difference as instead of wilting France’s stand-off Camille Lopez landed three penalties in the dying minutes to give them a 22-16 victory against a Scottish side nursing injuries including key ones to skipper Grieg Laidlaw and then man who took over the job when he left, John Barclay.
Laidlaw suffered an ankle injury and was on crutches after the game although still being assessed. Barclay and John Hardie suffered head injuries and there were plenty of bruised bodies in the visiting dressing room after a brutally physical battle.
“I think it’s fair to say the play didn’t come off,” said Cotter. “They actually got the upper hand at scrum time which gave them field position on a couple of occasions, when we needed field position we didn’t have it.
“Then there were a couple of turnover balls that if we’d played it more effectively it might have been different. Credit to the French team they applied pressure all the way to the end.
“It was hard work, a fiercely contested game.”
Cotter didn’t think the injuries contributed to his side’s defeat.
“We train for those scenarios,” he said. “It’s no ideal but we’re not using that as an excuse.
“We showed a lot of courage in defence, not giving up a try when they had that ten minutes on our line, but some bits of our game didn’t link too well, and we’ll look to improve that.
“But the guys dug in hard even losing a couple of players and we regrouped reasonably well.”
Jonny Gray ended up captaining the side at just 22, and he said that they had no excuses whatsoever.
“The feeling in the camp is very disappointed, but mistakes were made and we’re a very honest group.
“Could it have been won? I don’t think you can think like that. Credit to France applied a lot of pressure in different ways and it’s the unforced errors that we’re disappointed in, a few mistakes at critical times.”
Cotter said that he hadn’t spoken to Russell about the conversion miss.
“We were looking at players who were injured, but obviously it’ll come up in conversation tonight,” he said.
Hamish Watson, who had a storming game with ball in hand and winning turnover ball, said that he felt France were there for the taking.
“When we got the ball and held on to it, we all made yards,” he said. “At times, though, we would just give the ball away a bit stupidly.
“Yes, the game was there to be won. Definitely. When Tim scored that try, I think you saw that France were there for the taking.
But then, from the kick-off, we gave away the ball straight away – and they scored a penalty two minutes later. They managed to draw it level pretty quickly. If we had kept that lead and just exited properly, maybe got another penalty, their tails would have gone down. We could definitely have gone on and won the game.”
Watson added that Scotland hadn’t done the basics as successfully as they did to pull the Ireland game out of the fire in the dying moments a week before.
“If you look at the first try, we didn’t panic, we went through the phases, didn’t try any stupid off-loads – and then scored in the corner.
“In the second half we didn’t do enough to tire then out, hold on to the ball and use our backs out wide.
“Instead when they drew it level straight away and then went into the lead, we were trying to chase the game.
‘We needed to realise it was still just a three-point game at that stage. When it got to six points, it was always going to be tough. We didn’t look after the ball.”
