Les Bleus cruise! Townsend concedes France were worthy winners as Scots come up short in finale
Gregor Townsend conceded Scotland had been beaten by the better side as France powered past them in the second half to land the Six Nations championship.
The head coach, though, did question the call not to send off French hooker Peato Mauvaka late in the first half for a headbutt on Ben White as the scrum-half lay on the ground.
Scotland matched their hosts throughout a competitive opening period in the Stade de France but were blown away after the break as Fabien Galthie’s men rolled out Le Bomb Squad from the bench to land another three tries to clinch the title.
Townsend had no qualms with the end result but felt his team had played well for long spells before the French flexed their muscles and eased to a decisive victory.
He said: ‘France deserved to win. They deserve to be champions. They’re a quality side. And even though we played really well at times tonight, France were the better team in the end.
‘It’s a difficult one (to assess) because we lost the game and we weren’t pushing at the end to win it. But what we asked for the players tonight was to deliver physically.
‘One of the biggest challenges you get in world rugby right now is the French pack. The Springboks are very similar. And then when they bring a new pack on, it’s how you can not only withstand that challenge but be very aggressive with the way they play.
Townsend was pleased with what he saw from his Scotland side in Paris
Darcy Graham skips away from a challenge to get Scotland’s only try of the night
‘And I thought we were very good there. And then when you flip it around, how our forwards carried was some of the best carrying I’ve seen. Gregor Brown was fantastic in his first Six Nations start. Zander (Fagerson), Pierre Schoeman, Matt Fagerson. So many players fronted up physically. And we had some really good parts to our attacking game.
‘So there’s a lot to be proud of and a lot to build on. We created things and the effort was there throughout the 80 minutes. And strangely, probably the two best performances this year were what happened in defeats to England and to France.But we can take a lot of those two games as we look to next year and beyond when we have those challenges again.’
The call not to send off Mauvaka and for the disciplinary bunker to agree it merited only a yellow card baffled Townsend.
He added: ‘The decision not to raise it to a red card was because (they said) there was not excessive force. But I’m not sure that’s really the criteria for a non-tackle incident. It clearly wasn’t a tackle as it was after the whistle.
Mavuaka appears to go head first into Ben White, which only earned him a yellow card
‘So if there was head contact and that was intentional, it shouldn’t have anything to do with the force that was involved.
‘I feel sorry for Ben White here because he did nothing wrong. He first of all gets pushed to the ground and then he’s collided with on the head. I don’t know how it wasn’t raised to a red card.’
Co-captain Rory Darge was also mystified. ‘It looked like a headbutt. But, you know, that’s the way it goes. You get some decisions your way, you get some not your way. It’s not the reason that we lost the game, definitely not.
‘But I thought it should have been a red card – it looked to me like an intentional headbutt, but I’ve not watched it back. We’ve been on the right side of some decisions this campaign and been on the wrong side of some. It’s not something that we’re going to spend a lot of time thinking about, because there’s no point, it’s gone.’
