6N: France v Scotland reaction: Gregor Townsend says Peato Mauvaka decision is not an excuse for defeat

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GREGOR TOWNSEND was as flummoxed as almost everyone else by referee Matthew Carley showing Peato Mauvaka a yellow-card and referring the French hooker to the foul play review officer for the head-butting of Ben White rather then issue a straight red-card – but the Scotland coach stressed that this frankly incomprehensible decision was not the reason his side lost the match.

“The decision not to raise it to a red-card was because there was not excessive force. I’m not sure that’s really the criteria for a non-tackle incident,” said Townsend.

"It clearly was a non-tackle incident, it was after the whistle. So, if there was head contact and that was intentional, it shouldn’t be anything to do with the force that was involved.

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"It was after the play. I feel sorry for Ben White here, because he did nothing. He was first of all pushed to the ground, and a push is nothing in rugby, and then he got collided in the head, so I don’t know how it wasn’t raised to a red card, but whether that has had anything to do with the final result, who knows? Because France deserved the win, deserve to be champions, they’re a quality side. Even though we played really well at times tonight, France were the better team in the end."

Only the match referee has the authority to show a player a red-card so the decision to send it to the review officer meant that the severest sanction possible was a 20 minute red-card, which would have barred the player from returning to the match but allowed France to bring another player on 20 minutes later. In the end, it was decided that the yellow-card was enough, which is, frankly bizarre.

Townsend agreed that the way the citing rules currently operate is leading to referees making easier but not necessarily appropriate decisions.

"Yes, I think it is. I think we’ve taken decision-making away from referees, and that’s the process that we have now to speed up the game, but you don’t want to miss incidents that are clearly in the book that should be red cards,” said Townsend

It is not the first time in this Scotland have not had the rub of the green at key moments in matches, but the coach was not really in the mood to lament

"Probably just the England game, I would say.  I think that there was obviously key decisions in that game that were wrong. Today, you’re going to get some and some your not, but you’ve got to make sure that you move on from them. If they go your way, then you make the most of that advantage. If you don’t, you’ve just got to focus on what you can control."

Townsend also said he had no complaints about the decision to disallow a Tom Jordan try just before half-time after it was identified that Blair Kinghorn strayed into touch earlier in the move.

"Well, yes, we obviously had seven points that we thought we’d register just before half-time, it was a great try, a very good time to score as well, and I think it was Blair’s bum cheek just over the touchline which cost us,” said Townsend, who later clarified that it was actually the full-back’s elbow.

"But I think it was a good way to finish the half anyway with that momentum and finding a way to break the French defence. The points would have certainly helped us, but the frustration was we conceded that try just after half-time and France got the momentum back again.

"It’s a difficult one because we lost the game and we weren’t pushing at the end to win the game, but what we asked for the players tonight was to deliver physically,” Townsend continued.

"One of the biggest challenges you get in world rugby right now is the French pack, the Springboks are very similar, and then when they bring a new pack on, how you can not only withstand that challenge but be very aggressive with the way they play.

"They play a lot outside of nine and they bring the forwards into the game and I thought we were very good there.

"Now when you flip it around, how our forwards carried was some of the best carrying I’ve seen. Gregor Brown was fantastic, his first Six Nations start, he did really well in attack and defence, he did really well at set-piece. Zander Fagerson, Pierre Schoeman, Matt Fagerson, so many players fronted up physically.

"Then we had some really good parts to our attacking game, we created things and the effort was there throughout the 80 minutes.

"I loved right at the end, even though the game was lost, there was a maul on our line and we were very physical with two second-rows playing their first Six Nations games and they turned the ball over. There’s a lot to be proud of and a lot to build on.

"Strangely, our two best performances this year were what happened in defeats to England and to France, especially 80-minute performances, but we can take a lot of those two games as we look to next year and beyond when we have those challenges again.

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