Scotland scrum-half Ben White limped off with an ankle injury just weeks before the Rugby World Cup while prop Zander Fagerson saw red during a remarkable 25-21 warm-up win over a second-string France at Murrayfield on Saturday.
Tournament hosts France, one of the World Cup favourites, led 21-3 at half-time despite missing several first-choice players including captain and scrum-half Antoine Dupont and fly-half Romain Ntamack as coach Fabien Galthie looked to test his squad depth.
Scrum-half Baptiste Couilloud scored France’s first try before debutant wing Louis Bielle-Biarrey and lock Cameron Woki also crossed before the break, with White leaving the field after just 30 minutes.
But a largely full strength Scotland took the second half 22-0 despite playing most of it with 14 men after Fagerson was eventually sent off for thundering into Pierre Bougarit’s face at a ruck.
“We’ll wait and see what happens (with Fagerson),” Scotland coach Gregor Townsend told Amazon Prime. “He has to do better at making sure he gets under the chest of the French player.
“Ben White did have an ankle injury coming into camp. We hope that it won’t keep him out too long, but we’ll wait and see.”
Scotland hit back through Darcy Graham’s try and then, even when a man down, crossed France’s line again through front-row Pierre Schoeman before Dave Cherry went over as the hosts went ahead.
Finn Russell, captaining Scotland for the first time, just failed to convert replacement hooker Cherry’s try but the talented fly-half extended the lead to 25-21 with a penalty before his side held out to deny France a match-winning try.
“We believed that we could still win the game [at half-time]…I did fear that one man less would make it tough for us, but it didn’t,” said Townsend.
Scotland, in their second warm-up match following last week’s 25-13 win over Italy, had to play the final 24 minutes a man down after Fagerson’s exit.
He was initially given a yellow card in the 51st minute. But under new rules, that was reviewed while the game continued and, minutes later it was upgraded to a red, placing a question mark over Fagerson’s involvement in a World Cup opener against reigning champions South Africa in Marseille on September 10.
“It was encouraging, but given what we produced (in the first half) it’s really frustrating not to have claimed the victory,” said stand-in France skipper Brice Dulin, back in the side for the first time in two years.
Scotland are in a fearsomely tough group at the World Cup that also includes Six Nations Grand Slam winners Ireland, with only the top two teams from Pool B advancing to the quarter-finals.
Three-time losing finalists France, yet to win the World Cup, and Scotland will meet in another warm-up match in Saint-Etienne a week on Saturday.
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