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French trample Scots

Saturday, February 21, 1998 Published at 17:04 GMT

image: [ Scotland drive for the French line ]

French trample Scots
France stayed on course for a second successive Grand Slam after overcoming their Murrayfield jinx to beat Scotland 51-16 in a one-sided Five Nations Championship encounter.

France, the tournament favourites, followed up their impressive 24-17 win over England in Paris two weeks ago to record only their second win in the Scottish capital since 1978.

The visitors romped to victory courtesy of two tries from flanker Marc Lievremont, two from winger Philippe Bernat-Salles and one apiece from prop Christian Califano, scrum-half Philippe Carbonneau and Thomas Castaignede.

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Scotland suffered a first-half blow when they lost experienced lock Damien Cronin with a shoulder injury. Moments later the French claimed their second try.

Lievremont, who had kept his place after coming on as a replacement against England, was again the scorer after full-back Jean Luc Sadourny had cut through the Scottish defence.

Lamaison added a second conversion, but Chalmers reduced the deficit to five points just three minutes later with a successful penalty.

Lamaison responded on the half hour with a successful kick from 35 metres to put the Grand Slam favourites eight points clear.

France remained in command when Bernat-Salles raced down the right wing to grab his side's third try of the opening half. But this time Lamaison was unable to add the extra points.

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France replaced Lamaison during the half-time interval with David Aucagne coming on to win his seventh cap. But the change did little to upset France's rhythm and they needed just seven minutes of the half to score their fourth try when prop Christian Califano went over in the right corner.

Castaignede missed the conversion but he made amends with a penalty after 53 minutes as Scotland began to wilt. It was not long before France were celebrating their fifth when Brive flanker Magne kicked forward to send Bernat-Salles surging past Scottish cover to collect the ball and claim his 12th try for his country.

Castaignede added a conversion to put France out of Scotland's reach at 37-9 before Stanger grabbed a consolation try for the beleaguered Scots.

Former captain Rob Wainwright and centre Alan Tait combined before releasing Stanger to mark his 50th cap with a try that took him past the 100-point mark for Scotland. Chalmers added the conversion.

But France were not finished and they ran in two more tries, the first by Carbonneau after an interception and the second by Castaignede who rounded off a superb flowing move. Castaignede converted both scores.

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Scotland's Director of Rugby Jim Telfer paid tribute to France after their seven-try rout. "Man for man that's probably the best footballing team I've seen in recent years. They're all extremely good ball players. They are playing the kind of rugby we want to aspire to."

"There will be criticism after this and calls for players from the A team to be brought in, but it's a different ball game at senior level. We put a big effort in but at times we just could not cope with their pace.

"When we tried to stop them going through the middle, they went on the outside and stretched us. When we tried to stop them on the outside they went through the middle."

Scotland skipper Gary Armstrong admitted there had been a gulf in class: "At times it seemed as though they had three or four more players on the field than we had. They were very difficult to stop. We will have to look at the videos and try and learn from this."

Scotland ended with injury doubts over two key players before they meet Wales at Wembley in two weeks' time.

Outside half Craig Chalmers looks certain to miss the match after spraining his ankle while lock Damian Cronin has gone to hospital to have his shoulder injury examined.

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