Not for the first time in the Six Nations under-20 championship Scotland were forced to accept the self-evident truth that in an amateur v professional contest the outcome is predictable.
In front of a crowd of 12000 at the Stade Jean Laville in the eastern France town of Gueugnon, the young Scots were overpowered and outskilled by a French side , drawn entirely from professional clubs, which scored seven tries to expose both the narrow base of players in Scotland and the system that prepares young players
"These French guys are playing a very high standard of rugby week in week out and it shows." said the Scotland under-20 head coach, Sean Lineen. He added : "They've moved on this season in their preparation. They've been together at their national training centre for one week in every month since August. That means they've had seven weeks of training compared to our two sessions.
"For our players this was a massive step up in terms of intensity and physicality. But we'll get better because we're starting from such a low base. I think we can make huge gains for them in the programme" predicted Lineen
Of course it is not accurate to say that the Scotland under-20 team is entirely Skipper Jamie Ritchie and his back row colleague Magnus Bradbury have made appearances for Edinburgh this season while Zander Fagerson has propped for Glasgow Warriors. The point is, though, that the majority of the Scotland side, some of them very talented, are playing amateur rugby and against French players all of whom are attached to professional clubs the gap in experience is massive.
Scotland had hoped the relatively close scorelines achieved in recent seasons would be replicated on Saturday but on Saturday France were much too strong. Yet, it was Scotland who opened the scoring with a penalty goal from scrum half George Horne after good early pressure but a try and conversion by the pacy Stade Toulouse full back Thomas Ramos signalled French intent.
A further three first half tries, all of them converted, gave France a 26-6 interval advantage , Scotland having doubled their points tally with a second penalty goal by Horne. Then in the second half Scotland, temporarily reduced to fourteen after replacement prop Gary Robertson was sin-binned, could not stem the tide of pressure from the rampant French who added three more converted tries to record their biggest win over Scotland in Six Nations under-20 rugby.
Scorers France : Tries Ramos, Macalou, Blanc, Bonneval, Bachelier, Devergie, Fontaine Cons Fontaine, Ramos (4) Scotland Pens Horne (2)
France: T Ramos; A Bonneval, L Ghirard, F Fontaine, L Blanc; L Meret, A Meric; R Neti, C Chat, Q Bethune, T Labouteley, J Delannoy, S Macalou, L Bachelier, F Sanconnié Subs: J Marchand, T Estorge, M Simutoga, C Cazeau, M Devergie, A Dupont, E Roudil, V Saurs
Scotland: R Howarth; H Elms, A Russell, P Kelly, A Coombes; R Hutchinson, G Horne; M McCallum, R Graham, Z Fagerson, S Cummings, L Carmichael, L Wynne, J Ritchie, M Bradbury Subs: J Kerr, G Robertson, D Elkington, N Irvine-Hess, M Smith, A Manson, T Galbraith, R Smith.
Referee I Tempest (England)
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