U20s 6N: France v Scotland: close but no cigar for visitors in Parisian thriller

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France 45

Scotland 40

by ALAN LORIMER

SCOTLAND kept their best to last in the 2025 Six Nations Under-20 Championship by running the eventual title winners, France, desperately close at the Stade Jean-Bouin in a match that produced a total of twelve tries, five of these by the Scots who in defeat should award themselves credit for their ability to stay in the game and to produce some thrilling scoring moves. 

Scotland's haul of five tries earned a bonus point but crucially finishing within five points of France made it two, enough to ensure that Scotland moved off the bottom of the table into fifth place in the final Six Nations tally.

Ultimately, France had greater power up front and indeed behind the scrum where Les Blues had a number of stardust players, not least the player of the match Jon Echegaray, who scored two tries and whose attacking run in the first minute of the game gave France an early score.

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Scotland were perhaps caught in the headlamps during the opening minutes but the way they repeatedly replied to tries by the all-action France side was both impressive and heartening.

Once again skipper Freddy Douglas was immense, setting the tone with a high number of turnovers that resulted in penalties and moreover creating the grandstand finish to the game with a superb try that was all about sheer grit and defiance.

But Scotland's forwards as a unit deserve plaudits for the way they challenged a France pack that in the early stages looked to have the wherewithal to cause damage. Credit to the front-row players who refused to be cowed by beefy opponents and particularly so to Ollie Blyth-Lafferty who again showed why he is already being tipped to 'go places'.

"Ollie was was immense in the set-piece," observed Kenny Murray the Scotland U20s head coach, who also heaped praise on his skipper, saying: "Freddy undoubtedly has that X-factor" .

Another player to receive special words from Murray was replacement wing Cameron van Wyk. "He's Scottish-qualified and is playing for Ayr. He definitely has a future in the game," commented Murray.

Behind the scrum, Matthew Urwin had his best game of the campaign with clever passing and an overall sense of heads-up rugby while in midfield Kerr Yule was abrasive. Among the back-three Fergus Watson and Jack Brown again showed their quality with displays that should attract greater interest from their respective professional club coaches.

Overall, Murray has got to be satisfied with this performance from his charges, albeit he was not uncritical. "The game could have got away from us at one stage when we gave away some soft tries, but I thought it was a really spirited performance from our boys. France are top in all the attack statistics,” he said.

"This is the most points we've scored against France in the Six Nations," Murray pointed out, adding that the win against Wales and the performance against France showed his side are moving in the right direction. "We've certainly made progress," he said.

France took only 49 seconds to register first points with a try under the posts by the burly centre Simeli Daunivucu after full-back Echegaray had sliced through the Scotland defence.  Stand-off Jean Cotarmanac'h added the conversion.

The young Scots then had to defend  another France attack but thanks to good work at the ruck by Douglas were able to extricate themselves from a dangerous situation.

Then an amazing turnaround occured as Scotland found their attacking mojo to reply to the dynamic opening six minutes by France. From a line-out, the hosts moved the ball wide before switching the direction of their attack allowingWatson to make ground and then finding Brown with an inside pass giving the full-back to score his side's opening points.

From wide out, Urwin was accurate with his conversion kick to level the scores.  In the build-up to the Brown try the France, No 8 Antoine Chalus Cercy-Chalus committed a dangerous head-to-shoulder tackle on Yule resulting in a yellow-card for the back-row.

France, however, did not look too disadvantaged by being a man down, their seven forwards showing power at the maul to set up a try for the unstoppable chunky hooker Lyam Akrab, the score again converted by the France stand-off.

An Urwin penalty ate into the France lead but almost immediately the visiting pack again showed their enormous power in the driving maul. The Scotland forwards did well to front up but when the ball was released scrum-half Baptiste Tilloles had the pace and strength to force his way over for his side's third touchdown.

Three minutes later, France claimed their bonus point try from similar power play that ended with centre Oliver Cowie crashing over between the posts leaving Cotarmanac'h with the simplest of conversion kicks.

To their credit, Scotland hit back with an excellent score that started from a siege on the France line that was effectively defended by the home side. Then when the ball was released Noah Cowan delivered a direction-changing pass to Urwin, whose long floated pass to Watson gave the wing space to cruise over the the second Scotland try.

Inevitably, France countered, this time Echegaray scoring a solo try converted by Cotarmanac'h but five minutes before the break Scotland worked their way down field to put pressure on the France line and after a series of surges in the five metre zone, the home side made sure of points when Blyth-Lafferty got his hands on the ball before forcing his way over for Scotland try number three, Urwin converting.

It looked as though France would do their trick of scoring from the restart and looked to have put winger Xsan Mousques on course for a try only for the Scotland scramble defence to deal with the threat. Then, when France tried to recycle the ball, Douglas proved too quick, winning the Scots a penalty on the stroke of half time to take his team into the break trailing 22-33.

Scotland looked dynamic at the beginning of the second half and were rewarded with a second penalty goal by Urwin to reduce the France lead to eight points.

The gap quickly widened once again after Echegaray latched on to a cross-field kick to score his second try of the match.

Despite this set-back, Scotland's appetite for further points was undiminished as they showed with a successful maul and then after the ball was released to Urwin, the stand-off put in a pin-point accurate cross kick that was taken by replacement wing van Wyk, who had the skills to touch down for the Scots' bonus point try.

The pattern of the game continued with France replying quickly with a try and conversion by Cortarmanac'h but when skipper Douglas evaded three tackles in a run up the left touchline to score Scotland's fifth try there was a sense that Scotland might just close the gap on France.

Then in closing minutes of the game, Scotland looked as though they might add a further try but in the event had to settle for a drop goal by Urwin to earn the visitors a more than deserved double bonus point.

Teams –

France: J Echegaray; N Donguy, O Cowie, S Daunivucu, X Mousques; J Cortarmanac'h, B Tilloles (S Baroque ); S Jean-Christophe (L Gallardo ), L Akrab (Q Algay 78), M Megherbi (J-Y Liufau 64), C Kante Samba, J Nguimbous, A Deliance, N Traversier, A Chalus-Cercy

Scotland: J Brown; N Moncrieff (C van Wyk 50), A Hunter (, K Yule (R Wolfenden 64), F Watson; M Urwin, N Cowan (H McArthur 74); O McKenna (J Shearer 50), S Stephen (J Roberts 50), O Blyth-Lafferty (J Stewart ), B Godsell (C Moss 68), D Halkon, O Duncan, F Douglas ©, R Logan.

Referee: Lex Weiner (USAR)

Scorers –

France: Tries Daunivucu, Akrab, Tilloles, Cowie, Echegaray 2,  Cotarmanac'h; Cons: Cotarmanac'h 5.

Scotland: Tries: Brown, Watson, Blyth-Lafferty, Van Wyk, Douglas; Cons`: Urwin 2, Brown; Pen: Urwin 2; DG: Urwin

Scoring Sequence (France first): 5-0; 7-0; 7-5; 7-7; 12-7; 14-7; 14-10; 19-10; 24-10; 26-10; 26-15; 31-15; 33-15; 33-20; 33-22 (h-t) 33-25; 38-25; 38-30; 43-30; 45-5; 45-37; 45-40.

Yellow cards –

France: Chalus-Cercy (6 MINS)

Man-of-the-Match: Right from the start of the match, Jon Echegaray showed the kind of class we've seen from recent France U20 performers. His display would suggest that he is one of these special players destined to play for France at senior level.

Talking point: Scotland showed their true potential against France after below-par showings against both Italy and Ireland despite having home advantage in both cases. Their huge defeat against England was perhaps the low point of the campaign but to be able to win against a Wales side that despatched England in the final round and then to take France to the wire was inspirational. What this series of performances suggests is that Scotland went into the Six Nations Championship totally undercooked. The truly competitive display against France will surely help them in what is a massive challenge in this summer's U20 World Championship being played in the North-East of Italy. It's a tournament Murray and his squad are now looking forward to, albeit sharing the group stage with England, Australia and South Africa. "We'd rather be testing ourselves against the best than playing in the Trophy competition," was how Murray answered the prospect of mixing it with the big beasts of Junior World rugby.

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