If you were told that a team was lively, energetic, and creative in one half but sluggish and out of sorts in the other, you would naturally presume that the energy came first and the sluggishness second. But Scotland somehow got things the other way round against France on Saturday, and according to Darcy Graham the credit for the revival after the break should largely go to Finn Russell.
The first half at Murrayfield was both turgid and troubling from a home supporter’s point of view as a second-string French side went in at the break 21-3 ahead. But instead of succumbing to a damagingly heavy defeat, Scotland somehow succeeded in scoring 22 unanswered points after the interval to win 25-21, and that despite playing with 14 men for the final half-hour following Zander Fagerson’s sending-off.
Pierre Schoeman and Dave Cherry got two of the tries, while Russell himself ended up with ten points from two conversions and a couple of penalties. It was Graham who really got the comeback started, however, with the first try of the second half - although the Edinburgh winger himself insisted that he and the team had been inspired by a few choice words from the first-time captain.
“The second half was a lot of fun,” said Graham, who has now scored 19 tries for his country and has Stuart Hogg’s all-time record of 27 firmly in his sights. “We had a chat at half-time about what we wanted to get out of it, and Finn just said, ‘Let’s go out, have some fun and chuck the ball about’.
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“We did that. That’s our game, that’s what we want to be doing, but we didn’t do it in the first half. We didn’t look after the ball well enough and never really got any phases going, which meant we struggled.
“We went into the dressing room at half-time and were like, ‘We pretty much need to start again, go back to what we do and do it well’.
“We just had to write the first half off. You can get hung up on things like that, but if you let it bother you, you’re never going to win the game, so you do have to write it off. France put a serious amount of pressure on us in that first half, but the second half was a lot of fun.”
The fightback necessitated a lot of hard work, of course, as well as sheer enjoyment, and Graham and his team-mates know they are likely to face an even tougher challenge when they meet the French again in St Etienne on Saturday night. Home advantage will be one factor in France’s favour, needless to say, but it is also all but certain that head coach Fabien Galthie will restore his leading players to the squad after giving them a rest last week.
Gregor Townsend’s side have already lost in France this year, having gone down 32-21 in February’s Six Nations Championship clash. But their 2021 victory at the Stade de France is still relatively fresh in the memory, and Graham is convinced that, as long as they play more consistently to the level they achieved at times three days ago, they will give themselves a chance of making it three wins out of three in their World Cup warm-ups so far following their initial victory over Italy.
“We want to play the best in the world and the French team is the best in the world when they’ve got all their big dogs back,” the 26-year-old continued. “It’s going to be a tough one to go over there, but we are going to look at ourselves hard after that first half especially and then take the positives from the second half.
“We’re going to go over there and be confident, especially after that second half. If we can play like that for the full 80 minutes, I don’t see why we can’t turn them over or have an upset.
“Every time we’ve played in France, it’s proven to be one of the toughest places to go. We’ll learn a lot about ourselves in that game for sure.”
Head coach Townsend, who cut his World Cup training squad from 37 to 33 on Sunday, will name his matchday 23 to face France on Thursday. It is still unclear whether first-choice scrum-half Ben White will be fit to play after hobbling off three days ago with a foot injury, although the odds are on his being rested.
Meanwhile, Zander Fagerson will today attend a disciplinary hearing by video after his sending-off for dangerous play on Saturday. The Glasgow Warriors tighthead is in danger of being banned from Scotland’s remaining two World Cup warm-up games - against France this Saturday then Georgia a week later - and could also be suspended for some games at the tournament itself.
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