Murrayfield.

Scotland vs. France

Great atmosphere.  Scotland were composed, disciplined and effective throughout the first half.  There was a fantastic team try, and good decisions to take 3 points from penalties and keep the board ticking over.   Not getting points out of a long stint camped right under the French posts was a bit frustrating.  Maybe they should have taken 3 for one of the  penalties rather they won there than trying to force the try.  They looked in control with a man up, crumbling French scrum, and misfiring French lineout.

The second half was mostly dreary. It turned into a ridiculous game of kick tennis, which was very frustrating since as when they had the ball in hand the Scots were consistently making yards, forcing errors and penalties and looking dangerous.  So why kick endlessly?  The French had a few moments of inspiration one of which resulted in a try, which finally galvanised the Scots attack.  We thought we had a try at the end there.  

Most people seem to be blaming the TMO for not awarding it.  I'm not sure but I think the TMO did what he had to.  The on-field decision was "no try, ball not grounded".  The video shown in the ground had the TMO and ref agreeing that the ball was initially held up on a defenders foot, then moved downwards, but the video doesn't actually show the ball grounded.  As a friend of mine said "what the heck is under it then, a rift in the space time continuum" but my understanding is that to overturn the on-field decision the TMO would have to definitively show grounding.   Listening to the ref mike, the TMO was sure it was grounded, the ref was  sure it was grounded, but neither could SEE it grounded.  That's not enough to overturn the on-field decision.  I've since seen stills posted but none of them definitively show the ball on the ground - it looks like it's on the ground but there's always something in the way.

Now, a braver TMO or ref might have awarded that, but it seems to me the real problem here is that the ref said "no try" when he couldn't actually see what happened - he should have asked the TMO to adjudicate (which would clearly have resulted in a try) rather than assuming "no try" and leaving the TMO to overturn.

Farce.

Finn Russell, a man who seems to have finally started growing into his own legend, said it best in the post match interview.

"We can’t let the referee decide what happens in a game, it’s up to us to play better and make these matches a victory.”

Yes.

If they hadn't faffed around in a pointless battle of kick tennis for 20 minutes when we were doing so well with ball in hand they would have won that.

Scotland should have won.  Not because of a last minute ref decision, but because they clearly had the ascendancy if only they had taken advantage of it.