Brice Dulin, where the final cracking which costs the victory to the XV of France

At the Stade de France,

We can go through the sequence again and again and again, nothing to do, we do not understand what Brice Dulin wanted to do. We were playing the 81st minute of this France-Scotland, Friday, when the France team, ahead of three points to the score (23-20), managed to recover the ball by some miracle. At the back of the Stade Rochelais, there was nothing left to do but throw a big blow from the shoe into touch to settle the case and allow the Blues to come out of this tournament with their heads held high.

Instead, the number 15 tried a more-reckless-kill-die in front of his goal and was caught by Chris Harris, before conceding the killing penalty. The gift was too good for the Scots not to throw themselves on it and register the test for victory (85th), on the other hand, after many perfectly controlled playing times. We do not know what Gaël Fickou would have told us if he had attended a press conference after the match, but what is certain is that, at the time, the Stade Français player found it hard to believe. his eyes (and let Dulin know).

“It’s hard to take, you saw the scenario”

The only one to have agreed to return (very) briefly to this fact of losing was Captain Charles Ollivon. “It’s hard to say what happened, I haven’t talked about it with the players concerned. We regain possession, we procrastinate a bit… We will have to debrief but I think these errors will make us grow. It’s up to us to learn from these adventures. “We understand that no one wanted to shoot the boyfriend, also author of a tournament frankly not bad so far, but we do not see what the Blues could learn from this nonsense, but hey, let’s admit.

The story is all the more cowardly as it is the same Dulin who, a week earlier, scored the test for victory – and therefore the hope of final victory – against the Welsh in the 82nd minute. “It’s hard to take, you saw the scenario, breathed Galthié in the spans of the Stade de France. At one point, we say to ourselves that the match is over, and then ultimately no. Behind, we have to start again on a defensive phase and the Scots end up scoring and winning… ”.

If this error clearly cost the French the victory on Friday night, it would still be unfair to put everything on Brice Dulin’s back. No, the Blues did not wait for the very last moments of this match against the Scots to say goodbye to their dreams of glory in the tournament. To tell the truth, apart from a few sexy mini-sequences (we think of the test of Penaud initiated by this chistera of Vakatawa space), the Blues have never seemed able to overthrow the best defense of the tournament .

The Blues hardly deserved better

Blame it on this famous +21 that it was necessary to reach to hope to lift the trophy? This is the theory defended by Gaël Fickou after the meeting: “We ran after this title, maybe we mixed up certain areas, we perhaps wanted to score too quickly, we did not finish the actions. They kept the ball well, they made 50 playing times, we were in a hurry, we wanted to score those twenty-one points. In the end, it costs a lot. “

The reality is that the Blues only reacted to the Scottish attacks and chased the score for a good part of the first period. And when they finally managed to put a little order in their ideas, the Blues made stupid mistakes, as on this key harvested in large widths just before the break.

“If we resume the match and study it in detail, we will inevitably find key moments that will be decisive at the end,” agreed the coach. At the time, we chose to throw from the sidelines and the Scots were able to read our structure and intervene wisely. But this key is not the only one, there are several ”. Fifteen, to be precise. Yes, fifteen like the number of penalties conceded by the XV of France on Friday night. It’s too much, too much to hope for a small form victory at best. And even that, we were not entitled to it.