Late France penalty sinks four-try Scotland

Scotland and Rory Darge saw their winning tally extremity successful France

Scotland were edged retired by World Cup hosts France successful an enthralling contest.

Damien Penaud and Charles Ollivon went implicit successful speedy succession arsenic Les Bleus built a commanding lead, but Duhan van der Merwe, Rory Darge and different Steyn effort hauled Scotland level.

A precocious Thomas Ramos punishment got France implicit the enactment with a 30-27 win.

Scotland look Georgia astatine Murrayfield successful their last World Cup warm-up lucifer connected Saturday, 26 August, with Gregor Townsend naming his last 33-man squad for the tourney connected Wednesday. The Scots unfastened their Pool B run against holders South Africa connected 10 September.

• Reaction & arsenic it happened

Last weekend's thrilling comeback to bushed the French would person been a large assurance booster for the Scots, but this France squad was unrecognisable from the 2nd drawstring that were connected amusement astatine Murrayfield. The large guns were back. The hosts' World Cup preparations started here.

On a hot, sticky evening it was imperative Scotland started well. In fact, they started brilliantly. Finn Russell's pin-point footwear from heavy caused mayhem successful the French defence and yet brought the Scots a 5m attacking lineout. From determination they worked a presumption from which to strike, putting it wide for Steyn to dive implicit successful the corner.

The aged Scottish Achilles' bottommost of botched restarts reared its disfigured caput to let Ramos to bang implicit a punishment for France, though Russell responded successful benignant moments aboriginal to reconstruct the seven-point advantage.

For the adjacent 10 minutes France laid siege to the Scottish line, forcing a succession of 5m lineouts and penalties. Rather than keeping their ft connected Scotland's throats, France amazingly elected to opt for different 3 points from the footwear of Ramos.

Ali Price was sin-binned for a cynical, though necessary, tackle connected Antoine Dupont, having failed to retreat 10m from a penalty. Dupont thought helium had scored moments later, lone for the effort to beryllium ruled retired erstwhile the referee's adjunct ruled, incorrectly arsenic it turned out, that the fig 9 had a ft successful interaction earlier successful the move.

France made their numerical vantage wage conscionable aft the half-hour mark, Dupont peeling disconnected the basal of the scrum and feeding Ntamack to glide done the Scottish defence to score. Half-time came arsenic invited alleviation to the visitors and going successful conscionable 3 points down was a decent result aft each France's pressure.

That hard enactment was undone somewhat conscionable a infinitesimal into the 2nd fractional erstwhile Pierre Schoeman needlessly fumbled and from the turnover the shot recovered its mode to Penaud, who recovered his mode to the line.

The greatness of this French team, and galore French teams successful the past, is their quality to detonate into beingness successful devastating bursts and wrong 2 minutes they were backmost nether Scotland's sticks with a superb antagonistic attack.

A speedy lineout midway wrong their ain fractional acceptable Dupont free. He recovered Ramos, who scorched up the touchline and past fed Ollivon successful enactment to gallop to the line. Having been close successful the crippled astatine the break, the Scots looked bamboozled and, astatine 27-10 down, successful a batch of trouble.

Penaud thought helium had grabbed his 2nd effort lone for the TMO to spot a sound connected from Ntamack conscionable earlier helium grounded.

Scotland rallied from 19 points down to springiness the French an almighty fright successful Paris successful this year's Six Nations, and turned astir an 18-point half-time shortage to bushed them connected location ungraded past weekend, but a akin revival was improbable successful Saint Etienne. Or was it?

Huw Jones offered anticipation with a searing interruption that would person brought the centre a effort were it not for immoderate superb last-ditch defending from Penaud, though Van der Merwe was connected manus to decorativeness things off.

The crippled had seemed dormant and buried, but erstwhile Darge burrowed implicit aft a speedy pat punishment from Russell, abruptly it was a five-point game.

Les Bleus looked acceptable to deed backmost instantly erstwhile Gabin Villiere slipped done a succession of anemic Scottish tackles, that was until substitute Ollie Smith showed them however it's done, poleaxing the winger and dislodging the shot arsenic helium closed successful connected the Scottish line.

The Scots struck again 8 minutes from time. Blair Kinghorn broke done the French defence earlier substitute George Horne's clever grubber sat up perfectly for Steyn to stitchery and dive implicit for his 2nd effort and level things up astatine 27-27.

The fairy communicative decorativeness was not to beryllium for Scotland, a scrum punishment allowing Ramos to bang implicit the winning footwear 2 minutes from the end.

The French were astir apt bully worth for their triumph overall, but the quality and quality shown by Scotland to tally 1 of the World Cup favourites truthful adjacent volition basal them successful bully stead for adjacent month, erstwhile the existent worldly starts.

Scotland caput manager Gregor Townsend connected Amazon Prime: "I'm truly arrogant of the effort and however we started the game. We were ambitious, accurate, carnal and we had to soak up a batch of unit successful that archetypal fractional erstwhile we were a antheral down. We missed the archetypal 5 to 10 minutes of the 2nd fractional and France got opportunities.

"We're gutted that we didn't get thing retired of that. It shows a batch for the quality and competitiveness of the group. It's disappointing that we didn't triumph it. Even a gully would person been thing we could instrumentality much positives retired of. There's truthful overmuch much to travel from this team.

"We showed successful the archetypal 15 minutes and the past 15 minutes that we tin triumph ball, our acceptable portion tin beryllium beardown and besides we tin onslaught and people large tries. We person to bash that for overmuch longer."

Line-ups

France: Ramos, Penaud, Fickou, Danty, Villiere, Ntamack, Dupont, Baille, Marchand, Aldegheri, Woki, Flament, Boudehent, Ollivon, Alldritt.

Replacements: Bielle-Biarrey for Ntamack (55), Lucu for Dupont (68), Gros for Baille (48), Bourgarit for Marchand (49), Atonio for Aldegheri (49), Chalureau for Flament (63), Verhaeghe for Alldritt (66). Not Used: Macalou.

Scotland: Kinghorn, Steyn, Jones, Tuipulotu, Van Der Merwe, Russell, Price, Schoeman, Turner, Nel, R. Gray, Gilchrist, Ritchie, Darge, Dempsey.

Replacements: Smith for Kinghorn (63), Horne for Price (55), Sutherland for Schoeman (55), McInally for Turner (55), Sebastian for Nel (55), Cummings for R. Gray (64), Skinner for Gilchrist (55). Not Used: Bayliss. Sin Bin: Price (28).

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