Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend says that the rugby world will be glued to their screens on Saturday night – and he’s probably right. France are so watchable, so compelling, so vulnerable at Twickenham and so imperious in Dublin. They’re a drama unto themselves.
Everybody loves a flawed genius and here it is in team form. How could such a collection of stellar players only have a championship to win on Saturday night instead of a Grand Slam? The loss to the English is incomprehensible and yet that flakiness adds to France’s appeal. They’re an eminently loveable lot.
It’s not just the creative majesty of their team that captivates, it’s the terrible beauty of their 7-1 bench, an idea borrowed from the Boks but, somehow, more impressive when France do it.
Why do we love them? For their collective class – they need four tries to set a new Six Nations try-scoring record. For their individual excellence – Damian Penaud has 12 (or twelve, as the old vidiprinter would present it) tries in his past five games for club and country, with the young maestro Louis Bielle-Biarrey scoring a ridiculous 23 in his past 20.
The Bordeaux flyer has scored 17 tries in 18 Tests. Frankly, it’s ludicrous.
What else? For the moments that only great players can deliver – Bielle-Biarrey, again, going for a record-busting eighth try in a single Six Nations. For the absent genius – Antoine Dupont. And for the unsung dogs of war – Thibaud Flament in the second-row, Paul Boudehent in the back-row, just two of their many heavies who can bang and who can play.
France have won their past three Six Nations Tests against Scotland and have won 20 of the last 25 between the sides. They’re roaring hot favourites, but what about the Scots? One out of a hundred? One out of a million? A chance?
They can be brilliant and they can be brutal, they can be lethal and they can be wasteful. In a sense, they’re France-lite.
They make Jekyll and Hyde look uncomplicated; at times pure thoroughbreds, the Frankel of rugby and, at other times, self-destructive, the Devon Loch of the age.
Shaun Edwards is far too wily to listen to the chat about France being racing certainties. He didn’t become one of the most influential coaches of modern times by being a mug.
Edwards will approach Scotland in the manner of a bomb disposal expert making safe an unexploded device. He knows that danger lies within this team and it has to be neutralised. He knows that Scotland, on their very best day, are mad enough to make an almighty game of this.
It was a battle last year at Murrayfield and Scotland thought they’d won with a late Sam Skinner try, only for the officials to moonwalk back from a correct call that would have given them victory.
