Twenty-one-year-old Mathieu Bastareaud scored both of
France's tries as 'Les Bleus' opened their Six Nations
campaign with a comfortable 9-18 victory in Edinburgh.
The win
was functional without being outstanding against a limited
Scotland side, but Bastareaud's double will further
rehabilitate the young centre after a turbulent summer.
It was
Bastareaud, lest we forget, who caused an international
incident when falsely making allegations that he had been
mugged while on tour in New Zealand - lies that were
subsequently unpicked to reveal he was covering for getting
injured while drunk.
Since
then - and the ensuing media fallout - 'Basta' has kept a
low profile, or as low as you can for someone of his hulking
presence, and on Sunday he once again let his rugby do the
talking.
The
Stade Francais centre was described before the match as a
"human wrecking ball" by Scotland captain Chris Cusiter, but
in truth his two tries required little more than a stretch
of his tree-trunk thighs. His first was the culmination of a
period of mounting forward pressure that ended with
Bastareaud cruising over in the corner, while the home
defence backed off so much for his second that he virtually
ran in unimpeded from the 22.
The
high-octane start to the match was epitomized by two
crunching early tackles from France's giant winger Aurélien
Rougerie, although the second of those proved his own
undoing after he was forced off just four minutes into his
international recall after smashing into Johnnie Beattie.
Stade
Toulousain winger Vincent Clerc replaced the injured
Clermont captain, but it was Scotland who scored first when
full-back Chris Paterson slotted a 10th-minute penalty to
celebrate his 99th cap.
France
responded immediately with Clerc only denied by Thom Evans'
last-ditch cover tackle, before a period of forward pressure
culminated with Bastareaud being set clear for the opening
try after Imanol Harinordoquy had twice been denied from the
base of the scrum. Morgan Parra missed the touchline
conversion, but France's superiority was beginning to tell.
Beattie
and winger Sean Lamont both raised home spirits with surging
runs but it was France who came closest to scoring again
when Francois Trinh-Duc charged down Phil Godman's attempted
clearance, only for Lamont to execute another try-saving
tackle.
Parra
and Paterson then traded penalties before France made a
decisive break just before half-time, with Harinordoquy
setting Bastareaud for his second try as he ran through
Kelly Brown's despairing tackle. Parra was on target this
time with the conversion (again from out wide) to leave
France leading 15-6 at the interval.
The French scrum-half extended the lead
further with his second penalty shortly after the restart,
with Scotland's Paterson replying in kind on 53 minutes to
complete the scoring.
Lièvremont subsequently introduced Castres prop Luc Ducalcon
for his international debut, and the game meandered somewhat
after that as the visitors settled for the win, while
Scotland failed to break their defence.
Lièvremont was clearly delighted by the opening win - which
sets up next weekend's home clash with Ireland - but
attempted to deflect attention away from Bastareaud at the
end of the match, merely saying that the young centre had
"justified his selection".
He
added: "It was nice for him to score two tries but they were
both tries that came from good collective movements. We are
happy with Mathieu of course, but we are happy with the
whole team. Mathieu was just like any other player today, we
did not put any extra pressure on him. He did well, but it
was not him that won the game, it was the French team.
"Our
finishing could have been better but we were up against a
Scottish team that was very brave and enterprising. It is
maybe unrealistic to expect us to have scored 40 points
against them. The victory is important, of course, but I am
also happy that we controlled the game for 80 minutes. We
have congratulated the players, now we have to focus fully
on Ireland.
"If the
odd pass had gone to hand we could have scored one or two
more tries. It gives us something to work on ahead of the
Ireland match, although we only have a six-day turnaround.
So the main thing will be to make sure we recover," said
Lièvremont.
France
captain Thierry Dusautoir said he was "very happy" for
Bastareaud, and equally pleased with the result. "It's
something very, very important. Our aim is to win the Six
Nations competition. If we hadn't won the first game, we
couldn't have achieved that."
Man-of-the-match Imanol Harinordoquy expressed similar
sentiments: "The Scotland team has a big heart and it's
always a tough match to come here," he said afterwards. "We
knew we had to have a big performance from the forwards, and
we won the match in the scrum and the fight."
Scotland
coach Andy Robinson was honest in his post-match assessment.
"We were under pressure against a good French scrum and they
were very canny in what they did but we are finding our way.
We had a number of chances and didn't take them. France took
theirs and that's the difference at this level," he
admitted.
Scots
captain Cusiter said his team had paid dearly for their
defensive lapses. "Ultimately, the game hinged on those two
tries. We never made two defensive errors in one game which
were as serious as that in the autumn. If you take away
those two lapses, we were in the game, we were playing some
good rugby, we were getting some good width on the ball and
making a couple of line breaks.
"There's
obviously a bit of work to do on our finishing; we didn't
react well to a couple of situations when we got deep into
their 22. We've got a lot to work on but we've certainly got
a lot to build on," he said.
Scotland:
Pens: Paterson (3)
France:
Tries: Bastareaud (2)
Conv: Parra
Pens: Parra (2)
