The summary of this Scotland – France:
>> The French team said goodbye to their dreams of the first grand slam since 2010, Sunday afternoon in Murrayfield. The Blues were logically beaten by Scotland, 28 to 17, and let England take the lead a day from the end.
>> The Blues played backwards for almost the entire match. After a failed first penalty, they had to play 14 after the yellow card from Cros for a dangerous tackle and see Romain Ntamack leave them on injury. After two penalties from Hastings (11th and 19th), the Blues had a magnificent jump concluded by Penaud on a superb pass at the foot of Dupont (7-6, 33rd). But Haouas' punch precipitated the French fall. At 14, the Blues first conceded a penalty (37th), before seeing Maitland register the first Scot of the match just before half time (40th + 1). On returning from the locker room, the same Maitland did it again, to protect his family (19-7, 45th). Feeling the inevitable defeat, the French staff preferred to ask their players to ensure the penalties rather than trying to go to the test (21-10, 61st). But on an unfortunate rebound, McInally gave a little more advance to his own and moved away the point of the defensive bonus (28-10, 64th). Ollivon thought he was giving his family a little hope by scoring the second French try of the match four minutes from the end (28-17, 76th), but the Blues were again at fault in the last seconds, wiping out their last hopes to return from Scotland with a defensive bonus point.
>> With this defeat without a defensive bonus point, the Blues leave first place in the Tournament to the English for two small points unlike (13 points each and +15 for the English, against +13 for the Blues). If they want to win the tournament, the Blues will have to insure against Ireland next week, and hope that during their match (already postponed), England will do less well against Italy.
>> On the Scottish side, this victory goes back to third place pending Ireland's (postponed) match against Italy. The Scots still have a very small chance of winning this 2020 edition, but the scenario for such a miracle to happen is almost science fiction.
