Scotland coach Gregor Townsend admitted that he was surprised by the decision not to improve the yellow card of the Peato Mauvaka of France in a red behind his head in Ben White in their six Super Saturday Clash nations.
France regained the title of six nations for the first time in three years with a 35-16 win over Scotland in Paris, Les Bleus proving very strong at the end, while the three trials of the second half saw them obtain their second championship of the Fabien Galthie era.
Although that pronounced increase in the second half saw the rare in the title, the first half was much closer and France led only 16-13 on a break thanks to Yoram Moefana’s test.
They could also have been easily drawn and reduced to 14 players if the proof of Tom Jordan’s not allowed to stay and Hooker Mauvaka was sent to the wild head in white in the 20th minute.
Indeed, sending Mauvaka to the sin of sin saw Batica start returning with Finn Russell hitting the resulting sentence from the close distance to get visitors and running on the score table.
To Townsend, there was no reasoning after not improving the card considering that White “slammed into the head”
“Well the decision not to raise it in a red card was because there was no excessive strength,” Townsend said.
“I’m not sure they are really the criteria for an incident without form. It was clearly an incident without shape, it was behind the whistle.
“I’m sorry for Ben White here because he did nothing. He first pushed to the ground, and a push is nothing in the rugby, and then he slammed into his head, so I don’t know how he didn’t get up on a red card.
However, Townsend acknowledged that France were worthy winners of the 2025th title.
“But if this has had any connection to the final result, who knows, because France deserved the victory, deserves to be a champion, they are a quality side,” he said.
“Although we played really well tonight, France was the best team in the end.”
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