Gregor Townsend insists Scotland have ‘nothing to lose’ as they seek the victory that will prevent France from being crowned Six Nations champions in Paris on Saturday.
The head coach cursed the fact his team were not still in title contention themselves, which would have been the case had they beaten England at Twickenham a fortnight earlier.
Even without the injured Antoine Dupont, Townsend knows the French will be fired up after thrashing Ireland in Dublin on Saturday to move into top spot in the table.
Scotland are being given little chance of halting the French juggernaut but Townsend hopes that, with the pressure off, his players could yet cause an upset.
Townsend, whose team beat visitors Wales 35-29 at the weekend, said: ‘We are obviously disappointed not to be in the mix for the final week, but we delivered a bonus point win on Saturday and obviously had almost a very good away win in the last game. Now we’ve got one game left, so we’ve just got to show what we’re about.
‘We’ll be tested hugely over the 80 minutes, but it’s also an opportunity where we’ve got nothing to lose. We just need to play the rugby we’ve been playing for a lot of the Six Nations. We also need to be really physical in our defence, in our set-piece, because that’s where they’ll come after us. They’ll come close around the ruck as well.
Gregor Townsend admits that his Scotland team will be ‘tested hugely’ by France this weekend
France captain Antoine Dupont will miss the game after suffering a serious injury against Ireland
Blair Kinghorn celebrates after scoring Scotland’s fifth try in their 35-29 victory against Wales
‘What a game to be involved in. I watched a lot of their game with Ireland. I watched the first half before we got on the bus. Ireland had a lot of play in the first 20 minutes but they weren’t able to break France down and couldn’t score.
‘That’s unlike Ireland. They’re really good in the opposition 22. Any errors they made, they were punished by France.
‘And France then grew in confidence. When they click, whether it’s the forwards interlinking or some of their magical backline players, they’re very, very dangerous.
‘At home they’ll be full of that energy and passion that they always show when they play at the Stade de France.’
France will be without talismanic captain Dupont, who suffered a serious knee injury against Ireland and could now be sidelined for up to a year. Townsend, though, doesn’t believe his absence will weaken the French too severely.
‘Maxime Lucu (Dupont’s replacement) is part of a very good Bordeaux team,’ he added. ‘They put almost 70 points on Exeter and he was outstanding that day. So they’ve got other nines as well who are quality.
‘And the depth of French rugby, right throughout their team, their backline, their squad — if they go 7-1 (on the bench), you know you’re going to come up against some top, top players.’
Townsend was said to have been critical of the move towards teams filling seven of their eight bench spots with forwards during a World Rugby ‘Shape of the Game’ event in London last week.
He claims the views expressed at that conference were misrepresented, although he did reveal that he was not a fan of the 7-1.
‘They got their facts wrong,’ he said of the reporting. ‘There was a private discussion where I was the spokesman for my table and that was one of the things that was brought up.
‘Anyway, if you want my view, I don’t think the bench was set up to suddenly have a new forward pack coming on. But that’s for World Rugby to decide what you do with the bench, and to make any changes.
‘Just now you can put eight forwards on the bench if you want. We’ve faced it already with South Africa. We thought we rose to that challenge really well when they brought their seven forwards on and our forwards matched them. If it happens again this week, we’ve got to do even better.’
Intriguingly, Townsend didn’t rule out the possibility of Scotland going 7-1 should it suit them.
‘Who knows? All options are on the table. We have players that can play in different positions. France have that, but so do we. Guys like Blair Kinghorn and Tom Jordan have played 10 at international rugby and obviously Tom’s played 15 and 12. So who knows? We’ll see.’
