A sobering slice of reality was delivered to the Scotland Women’s team on Saturday evening when they were hammered 55-0 by a far fitter, stronger and faster French outfit.
Shade Munro’s side had entered the match with high hopes of building on a promising start to this year’s Six Nations campaign, but encountered a much more professional unit than they had encountered in a narrow loss at home to Ireland the week before.
And, in truth, the visitors were fortunate that France lost some of their shape and discipline in the final 15 minutes because, otherwise, the score-line could easily have surpassed the record 76-0 hammering suffered in 2013.
An indication of the size of the challenge the Scots were going to face was evident before kick-off, with a crowd in excess of 9,000 at Stade Marcel Deflandre in La Rochelle highlighting the profile of the women’s game in France.
Unperturbed, the Scots got off to a fairly positive start, and managed to keep the French at bay until the 18th minute, when impressive second-row Lénaïg Corson was twice involved in the build-up to the powerful Safi N'Diaye’s opening try.
The French added two more scores through Shanon Izar and Corson before the break; and then Elon Poublan powered over within a minute of the restart after the break to initiate a spell of horribly one-sided rugby, with Elodie Guiglion, Jade Le Pesq (twice), Caroline Ladagnous and Camille Cabalou all getting in on the act to bring up the half century with 15 minutes still to go.
The Scots deserve credit for continuing to battle right through to the end, but they made life hard for themselves by continually going to high when tackling players who had more than enough power to brush them aside.
Jade Konkel, Scotland’s only full-time professional player, showed up well in the first half with some powerful carries – but until a few more players can match her physicality, the likes of France and England are going to continue operating in a separate stratosphere.
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