Scotland – France

Scotland will hand rivals England the Six Nations trophy if they manage to avoid defeat at Murrayfield today, while France will be desperate to claim a win that would see them fight for the title in the last round. They would still need to beat England by a pretty large margin, but at least they would have a chance.

It`s been a long time since Scotland has been the favorite against France, but this emerging Scottish side is seen as having the first chance today. After a good World Cup (not as good as advertised), Scotland continued its progress under Vern Cotter, putting on good performances in this tournament. They lost close matches with England and Wales, even though they never had a real shot at winning either of those. Scotland followed with a 36-20 win in Rome last round, their first in Six Nations in the last two years. Scotland was impressive and dominant in the first half, but collapsed in the second period. Italy applied big pressure and missed a few huge chances. Eventually, Scotland closed the deal at the end, as Italy got discouraged.

It`s rather peculiar that France remained the last team with a chance to dethrone England for the title. The French side was coming after years of mediocrity and a very poor World Cup, but the fresh blood in the team, led by new coach Guy Noves, played some decent rugby in this tournament. France did not shine, but they did the job against Italy and Ireland before putting in another decent performance in a 10-19 away loss to Wales. Guy Noves’ tactics proved spot on so far and the new players are slowly learning to play as a team.

France always enjoyed success against Scotland, owning a H2H record of 15-1 against the Scots in Six Nations. Scotland has not won against France since 2006, riding a 10 match losing streak against “Les Bleus”.

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Team news & lineups:

Scotland will miss Scott, but has an otherwise healthy squad and will make just two changes to the lineup that beat Italy. France will make no less than six changes to the team that lost in Wales, but they are not injury-related, but tactical and due to players returning from injuries. They only have Burban as a new absentee

Scotland: 15 Stuart Hogg, 14 Tommy Seymour, 13 Duncan Taylor, 12 Alex Dunbar, 11 Tim Visser, 10 Finn Russell, 9 Greig Laidlaw (c), 8 Josh Strauss, 7 John Hardie, 6 John Barclay, 5 Jonny Gray, 4 Richie Gray, 3 Willem Nel, 2 Ross Ford, 1 Alasdair Dickinson

France: 15 Scott Spedding,14 Virimi Vakatawa, 13 Gaël Fickou, 12 Maxime Mermoz, 11 Wesley Fofana, 10 François Trinh-Duc, 9 Maxime Machenaud, 8 Damien Chouly, 7 Yacouba Camara, 6 Wenceslas Lauret, 5 Alexandre Flanquart, 4 Yoann Maestri, 3 Rabah Slimani, 2 Guilhem Guirado (c), 1 Jefferson Poirot

Scotland defeated France just once in 16 Six Nations meetings, they won a single Six Nations match since 2014 and do not have better players than France – yet they are favored by the bookies with odds of 1.80. Actually, the bookies had France as a tiny favorite at first, but the punters poured money on Scotland, determining the price to drop. This comes to confirm my opinion that the Scots are a bit overrated by the general public.

Listen, Scotland is definitely on the rise and they have improved, but they are not quite there yet. They are held in such high regard because of that World Cup match against Australia, because they play the most entertaining rugby in the Northern Hemisphere and because it`s true that they did improve – but Scotland still has a long way to go. They should have lost by more points against both England and Wales, while the 16 point win against Italy was way too large for what happened on the pitch – Italy had a decent shot at a win in the second half.

The scrum will be a key factor here and the Scots will hope to get the better of France in this department. Scotland finally has a top class scrum, but they are too dependent on WP Nell. Considering how clever France’s manager has been so far, he will surely target Nell and I won`t be surprised if he gets a yellow card. France’s scrum is competent as well so I don`t expect them to be dominated here. If they stand their ground, they should win, as they have a better back row and have the talent in offense to exploit Scotland’s defensive issues – issues that were visible in all games so far, including against Italy.

France is simply put the better team. Scotland needs top performances from their main guys, otherwise they are average. I expect France to be aware of this and contain them – actually the team selection is an indicative that they already took action. Captain Laidlaw is also unlikely to have another monster game for Scotland, he won the game against Italy by himself with crazy good kicking and pinpoint accuracy – if he`s not on a big day, it will probably be serious trouble for the Scots.

I can see France winning this game here and setting up a spectacular showdown with England in the last round, in Paris. This new French side is not yet on par with the likes of Wales or England, but is getting better with each game and they should put on a good showing here.

It`s interesting to see how Scotland will deal with the pressure. Many, many years have passed since they have been favored to win against anybody in the Six Nations, aside for Italy. They always lost against France, no matter how bad the french were. The H2H record and the pressure might affect Scotland a lot. I believe the expectations from this Scottish side are unrealistic and I expect France to nick a close game. As such, my tip here is France to win, with some great odds by 1xbet. Prediction: Scotland – France 19 – 22.

Pick: France
Odds: 2.26 @ 1xBet
Stake: 10
Possible profit: 12.60
Event date: 13 March