France v Scotland 6 Nations Sunday 28th February 2021

France v Scotland
6 nations Championship
Stad de France
Paris

Sunday 28th February 2021
KO 15.00


We the clash of the Auld Alliance comes about in strange circumstances, in the middle of an epidemic, no crowds and the French players dropping like flies.

Make no mistake though, the French will still put out a very strong side and Paris has been a bit of a graveyard for many Scottish teams over the years, they will have to play with the levels of skill an, accuracy and composure they showed in the first game against England and not the disjointed performance we backed it up with against Wales, to have any chance at all and it may also come down to which French team turns up as well. Recently though, it has tended to be the better French team that has arrived.

a few changes in our team this week as well you would imagine. I fancy something along these liners:

1. Sutherland
2. Turner
3. Nel
4. Gray J
5. Cummings
6. Ritchie
7. Watson
8. Fagerson M
9. Price
10. Russell
11. Maitland
12. Taylor/Johnson - Can't make up my mind about this one, though if pushed probably Taylor
13. Harris
14. VDM
15. Hogg

Subs
Kebble
Berghan
Cherry (he has done little wrong but I do fancy we will see Ashjman at some stage this 6N)
Gray R
CDP/Harley/Baylis - Like everyone else, i know nothing about the new guy. We do know what CDP and Harley bring, hard graft but no X factor. Will Toonie roll the dice?
Dobie - The stars seem to be aligning for him and he could bring real impact
Hastings - likely to come on at 12 unless Finn gets injured
Jones H


We could end the match with a backline of Dobie Russell Maitland Hastings Jones VDM Hogg - that would certainly be interesting!

Well done on the post, Gee.
Looking at your predicted side it's very interesting just how much of the XV picks itself.
The pack is pretty much a shoe in (like what I did there...oh for the days of old style rucking). Young Grant Stewart did himself no favours when he came on against Ulster on Friday night so I think you're right we'll see Ashman before Stewart this year. Mbawza-Matt in the Middle-Hamish seems to be our best back row. N.B. Fagerson's stats from the Wales game were almost the same as Faletau's and Fagerson is really a baby in forward's years. Cummings-Gray-Gray looks to be the best we can put out. Mind you, the France locks are quite "old school" in that their first job on the pitch seems to be battering anyone in an opposition jersey who gets close to them. This is the sort of game which could well suit GG if, IF, he was the nasty, big lump, enforcer he thinks he is. But sadly....
W.P. Nel is not Ragnar, but he is very good at what he does; the question is will Berghan step up when he comes on?
The only question mark in the backs is 12. Johnson did very well against McLoskey (sp?) when Ulster were playing off 10 and running straight up the 12 channel; however, when Glasgow had lots of ball they really struggled to put points on the board. Taylor hasn't played much rugby (you could put that on a loop) so he might be fresh or he might be off the pace. Haircut was very off the pace against Ulster ( which may go along way to explaining lots of possession and very few points) but he'll most likely bench ahead of VDW. VDW reminds me of the Spanish journalist who asked Stevie Archibald after a Barcelona match, "Senor Archibald, what exactly is it you do on a football pitch?"

Final paragraph just for the young Dobie... if he fulfils his potential he will be some player. I think we put him on the bench and if the pack are getting the better of the French then he can come out to play for the last 15.

Does anybody think that this game will go ahead ?

We definitely need a SH on the bench that Toonie trusts and will put on the pitch when Price starts to blow. He clearly did not have that faith in Steele (who is a solid but unspectacular player).

I think Dobie can cope with 15 mins of flat out rugby when things might be opening up a bit. He and Ashman are both our future players, so starting to get them experienced can only be a good thing.

LordDowlais wrote:Does anybody think that this game will go ahead ?

Unless they have another massive outbreak in the French squad, yes

Firstly, Bayliss 6' 3" & 16st 3lb in and Sam Skinner 6' 5" & 17st 11 lbs out, what the hell Toonie?. I don't think Bayliss got into a Bath BR when they have a full complement so unless he has cranked up a gear this season and has a burst of speed that Skinner hasn't got, then I cannot see the advantages he brings.

With France having key players missing, the manner of the loss against Wales makes it even more frustrating.

If fully match fit, the 23 I'd go with;

15 Hogg
14 vd Merwe
11 Maitland

13 Harris
12 Russell

10 Hastings
09 Price

08 Fagerson
07 Watson
06 Richie

05 Cummings
04 Gray Jnr

03 Nel
02 Turner
01 Sutherland

16 Kebble
17 Berghan
18 Cherry
19 Gray Snr
20 Harley.....CDP/Bayliss all the same. Disappointing selections
21 Dobie
22 Taylor if fully fit, if not Jones
23 Graham

BigGee wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:Does anybody think that this game will go ahead ?

Unless they have another massive outbreak in the French squad, yes

They already have 5 positive tests. Shouldn't the whole squad now be isolating ?

I think they are, they are planning to start training from Wednesday

They have just announced another 5 cases this morning, so it does seem to be getting a bit silly now.

They are testing every day though, so at least ghey are picking up the positives

Who knows what is going to happen now!

BigGee wrote:I think they are, they are planning to start training from Wednesday

They have just announced another 5 cases this morning, so it does seem to be getting a bit silly now.

They are testing every day though, so at least ghey are picking up the positives

Who knows what is going to happen now!

another five? Making 10 in total? Where did you see that?

Just announced, saw it on Twitter

Ollivon, the captain amongst them

https://www.ultimaterugby.com/news/france-captain-charles-ollivon-one-of-five-players-to-test-positive-for-covid-19/637188

Flippin' 'eck

should be postponed now then

Oh dear, in light of the new cases i'm struggling to see how they are going to be allowed to fulfill this fixture

Bayliss Scottish ? That really is just ridiculous. Good player though, ex England U20 captain.

The French are saying they will select a whole new squad if they have to, although I do not know how that would work either.

It seems they are determined to get this game played!

I love the fact that as well as five more players testing positive the French authorities are saying two of the management team are "considered to be a suspicious case".

FFR have called up another 5 players to the squad, so they're determined to get it played. I wonder if the decision will be taken out of their hands though.

jimbopip wrote:I love the fact that as well as five more players testing positive the French authorities are saying two of the management team are "considered to be a suspicious case".

Haha, yeah I saw that - anybody have a clue what that would mean in practice?

LordDowlais wrote:The French are saying they will select a whole new squad if they have to, although I do not know how that would work either.

Not sure how the bubbles work these days. Maybe as these guys are playing club rugby against each other that counts as one giant bubble?

I'd think that each player brought in would be tested each day also and in the event that they test positive they also would be isolated and miss the match?

It's all a bit of a mess and really you'd think postponing would be the senisible approach? I can only think that French clubs wouldnt release the players if it wasnt an international window so France would have to forefeight an AI game which may be why they are pushing to get the game played?

"France v Scotland in doubt because of positive coronavirus tests"

BBC wrote:

Scotland's Six Nations match in Paris on Sunday has been thrown into further doubt after five more France players tested positive for coronavirus.

Captain Charles Ollivon will miss the game after contracting the virus, along with the nine other France players who have tested positive so far.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/56154026

I think this is going to be the first of this years 6 Nations to be postponed... but I bet it wont be the last

This is a good a chance as any to go for Scotland to go for the jugular and put a score on France.

LordDowlais wrote:This is a good a chance as any to go for Scotland to go for the jugular and put a score on France.

If its played... I think this game will get re-arranged.

They have a 1/3 of their squad now testing as positive.. The French authorities will not allow this to be played at this time.

According to the 6n rules which I have just read, and which was confirmed in the press by the 6n president Ben Morel right before this tournament, the French can pospone the match.

In this event the match can be postponed to the second furlow week which is the week after this weekend.

In this case the French would need to get release of their players (doable), whilst the Scots would need to negotiate theirs who are playing in England and France (highly unlikely )

So there is a distinct possibility of a full French team facing a much depleted Scottish team. These are the rules, so should no issue there.

That's hardly fair.... I would bet that, if that happened, meaning Scotland cant field a "1st" XV, then the game will be re-arranged for later in the year, as it was last year and on previous occasions when games couldn't be played.

Which means, if France or Scotland are still in the running for the title, this tournament, like last year, wont get completed till Summer or Autumn of this year.

But we aren't half way through yet, so I'm expecting other teams to fall foul of C19 before the final game.

Decision being made on Wednesday apparently.

I expect it will come down to whether there are more positives in the next two rounds of testing prior to that.

I thought the 6N should have been cancelled this year but now it's going ahead and we have the inevitable infections I'm not sure what is the best way forward.

If it goes ahead with no further infections will we then have Scotland players testing positive afterwards? That is a possibility. Seems a bit risky if ten players are infected in the French camp. I'm expecting there to be a postponement.

I've just seen on the Facebook, which you can get with tinternet, that an 11th French player has tested positive.
If you think how much wee Nicola kicked off about Boris Johnson making an unnecessary visit north of the border what would the SRU do if the First Minister questioned the wisdom of the trip to Paris?

Tbh I'd rather it cancelled than more folks get Covid who could have avoided it. We need to consider that our boys have to isolate from France really, especially as it is so endemic in their camp.

It sucks but that's just the last 12 months in a nutshell.

I’ve seen the SRU statement about how they hope the game can go ahead, due to the issues around player release for 10 of their players. To be honest, I did wonder whether there would be some sort of workaround, to make next weekend an international window (if necessary), as it’s not the SRU’s fault that these circumstances have arisen. Obviously the Clubs would need to be compensated, but I did wonder if there was a way to achieve that too.

No way will the PRL release scots players. They have been totally obstinate about this in the past even threatening to fine a club who wanted to do so.

The English and French clubs don't usually take any prisoners about these sorts of issues.

They are very reluctant to establish any kind of precedent.

Fair enough about clubs not wanting to release players but surely the main issue is that the French bubble has been well and truly burst. ANY side travelling to play them this week would be putting their players, and by extension their families, at risk.
In that case who would be legally responsible?

I think it’s completely fair for clubs to refuse to release players outside of agreed windows. Otherwise, what is the point of the agreements?

In terms of player safety (and the nation’s at large) if some games need to be postponed then that’s what needs to happen. The 6Ns committee will have been aware that this was a real possibility.

Its not the clubs its tre PRL. did George North ( someone else?) not have a agreement to get extended release when he played for an english club but the PRL blocked it despite the club and coach being happy for the extended release? the PRL basically extorted money from the RFU for release

Looking at what's been going on with Covid management from an Australian perspective I'm very surprised this hasn't been called off already.

If this was in Aus the entire squad would be classed as close contacts (unless they were in smaller separate bubbles at all times indoors) and have to self isolate for 14 days, regardless of negative tests or not. Australia has found from their hotel quarantine system that a large number of cases don't present themselves until day 10-12 of quarantine, with negative test results leading up to that point for those people. As such just because the remaining players haven't tested positive it doesn't mean that they never will from the current outbreak (btw I never understood why the UK takes a 10 day approach when pretty much the rest of the world agrees Covid has a 14 day incubation period! As I mentioned the Aus hotel quarantine results attest to that).

This presents a big risk to the SRU and our players, but it seems like they're wanting the game to go ahead. Is that really worth our own outbreak?

Can't imagine the props are overly keen to be breathed on by the French front row, although that's not a new thing!

TJ, in that instance it was Northampton’s ‘misunderstanding’ of the PRL agreement with their clubs which lead to the sanction.

It’s a difficult one as many could be looking at this from their own self interests.

Scotland could go and play a seriously weakened french team. No DuPont, no captain Ollivion, whole team stuck indoors for a week with no training. It could give us another away win in this championship. England could trip wales up at the weekend meaning the championship could still be a possibility for us.

The SRU wouldn’t want to let that chance go

Meanwhile the french union know that their renegade clubs won’t release players outside of the agreed windows so they too want to press ahead.

Meanwhile there’s a global pandemic on and really everyone should be looking at the bigger picture.

.

TJ wrote:Its not the clubs its tre PRL.  did George North ( someone else?) not have a agreement to get extended release when he played for an english club but the PRL blocked it despite the club and coach being happy for the extended release?  the PRL basically extorted money from the RFU for release

because the PRL has a financial arrangement with the RFU allowing access to the players. I am sure that the PRL would show a similar understanding to our Celtic friends if they too were prepared to put their hands in their pockets. This debate gets done to death so many times I can only wonder if those responsible for bringing it up time and again have some short term memory issues.

Having said that I do hope a sensible way forward is found here.

lostinwales wrote:

TJ wrote:Its not the clubs its tre PRL.  did George North ( someone else?) not have a agreement to get extended release when he played for an english club but the PRL blocked it despite the club and coach being happy for the extended release?  the PRL basically extorted money from the RFU for release

because the PRL has a financial arrangement with the RFU allowing access to the players. I am sure that the PRL would show a similar understanding to our Celtic friends if they too were prepared to put their hands in their pockets. This debate gets done to death so many times I can only wonder if those responsible for bringing it up time and again have some short term memory issues.

Having said that I do hope a sensible way forward is found here.

A sensible way forwards in Rugby?

I think there are 2 options either the game goes ahead with a weakened French team or the Scots are awarded a 4 point win. It doesn't seem fair to me that the game is delayed , and the French get the chance to field a full strength team against an amalgam of Glasgow and Edinburgh

No new positives for France today.

I expect if it is the same again tomorrow, the game will go ahead.

The game is announced to go ahead. I suspect this is still subject to change close to the time.

Thats 2 rounds of no further positive tests, so it may well have run its course seeing as French team not been in close contact

Am sure they will be tested again though, but hopefully good to go now and we get a game.

So, France Under 15's third team v Scotland ( without Ragnar).
Too close to call.

I sm not mad on this situation as it puts the ptessure back on us, which it should not be for an an away game in Paris.

Reminds me a bit of the Munster-Glasgow game after the unfortunate passing of Foley, which was also on off for the week leading up to it.

That situation and the emotion of it ended up effecting us more than them.

This match could easily go the same way.

I remember Earls was highly aggravated during that match and despite a red card Munster were so full of adrenaline at the loss of Foley they made their 14 man win look easy.

I can't see Sunday being like that. France won't be push overs and could still win the game but after Scotland's last performance it feels like Scotland will have more of a say in who wins this Sunday. Another performance like the one vs Wales and they may get lucky and scrape past France. It would be much much better to see them go for the jugular and play like a team that are determined to win the 6N. That sort of performance wasn't totally absent against Wales but they made a hash of their opportunities to put the game to bed. It would be a real statement of intent if they can control the game like they did against England and win the match to setup a pretty tense final two weeks.

We could potentially have France, Scotland, Wales and England all on two games each going into the final two fixtures.

bsando wrote:I remember Earls was highly aggravated during that match and despite a red card Munster were so full of adrenaline at the loss of Foley they made their 14 man win look easy.

I can't see Sunday being like that. France won't be push overs and could still win the game but after Scotland's last performance it feels like Scotland will have more of a say in who wins this Sunday. Another performance like the one vs Wales and they may get lucky and scrape past France. It would be much much better to see them go for the jugular and play like a team that are determined to win the 6N. That sort of performance wasn't totally absent against Wales but they made a hash of their opportunities to put the game to bed. It would be a real statement of intent if they can control the game like they did against England and win the match to setup a pretty tense final two weeks.

We could potentially have France, Scotland, Wales and England all on two games each going into the final two fixtures.

Or just as likely we could have Wales and France going into Round 4 with a Grand Slam still on. If that is the case, Wales would be in the driving seat with Italy to play and France having t go to Twickenham.

Now thats not something I predicted with Pivac's past record in the job.

jimbopip wrote:So, France Under 15's third team v Scotland ( without Ragnar).
Too close to call.