LONDON – Wales finally ended a miserable run of eight straight defeats and sent a witless France into wooden-spoon territory with a surprising 16-6 victory in Six Nations rugby on Saturday.
George North scored the only try, the match-winner, of a turgid match when he collected a Dan Biggar chip and dived into the left corner with nine minutes to go.
Wales tasted victory for the first time since winning the Grand Slam last year, in a city it hadn’t won in for eight years.
“Pretty special day for the Welsh team,” interim coach Rob Howley said. “The style of defense we operate put them under a lot of pressure. The players deserve a lot of accolades.
“It’s obviously a relief, it’s been a long time. But you don’t become a bad team overnight, those narrow losses before became a win today and now we can take that to Italy.”
After losing to Italy last weekend, France failed to respond positively and played even worse. The crowd had already been jeering the home team’s clueless effort, but North’s converted try to break a 6-6 deadlock prompted some fans to throw litter onto the field, and fulltime set off only harsher whistles of frustration.
“How do I explain this black hole? You have to accept that the Welsh came here to win after losing eight games in a row,” France coach Philippe Saint-Andre said. “You have to score when you’re on top, and in the first half we had two great chances but couldn’t take them.
“We were flying in November and at the moment it’s very, very tough: We are at the bottom of the Six Nations.”
Looking ahead to the away match in England on Feb. 23, he said, “We have to lift our heads up and prepare like commandos to go and play at Twickenham. We can’t win the Six Nations now but we can win respect.”
France has started the tournament it was favored to win with consecutive defeats for the first time since 1982.
“It’s pretty hard to take,” France flanker Thierry Dusautoir said. “It’s difficult to get the better of teams if we can’t take our chances. Other teams have one chance against us and score.”
France flyhalf Frederic Michalak and Wales fullback Leigh Halfpenny kicked two penalties each, the only scoring in the first 70 minutes, and Halfpenny closed the scoring with his third.
“Words cannot describe how much this means — what a fantastic feeling,” Halfpenny said. “The boys played unbelievably well. We dug deep to get this fantastic win, it’s been a long time coming.”
France’s poor effort was matched by the state of the Stade de France field, which became cratered as large clumps of turf stuck out where the scrums, notably, couldn’t find any leverage in the dirt.
Scotland defeats Italy
AP
An 80-meter interception try by Stuart Hogg capped Scotland’s 34-10 win over Italy at Murrayfield in the Six Nations on Saturday, bringing the visitors back to earth after their defeat of France.
The fullback brought the crowd to its feet with one of four tries scored by the effervescent back division of the Scots, who ended a wretched run of four straight losses.
Centers Matt Scott and Sean Lamont and winger Tim Visser also went over while Greig Laidlaw kicked flawlessly for 14 points as the error-prone Azzurri were blown away, a week after producing one of their greatest displays to beat the pre-tournament favorites.
This match typically decided the wooden spoon, but the Italians’ 23-18 victory over France added a new dimension to their trip to Edinburgh, with some pundits saying they could even challenge for a top-three finish for the first time.
However, they were no match for a fired-up Scottish team desperate to make up for its 38-18 loss to England last weekend, with Italy’s only try coming from flanker Alessandro Zanni late on.
Tigerish in defense, Scotland brought a clinical edge to its play behind the scrum that has rarely been seen in recent years.
Hogg’s interception score in the 48th minute was the game’s highlight, when he read Luciano Orquera’s inside pass to burst upfield from inside his own 22 and score his second try of the tournament.
Yet interim coach Scott Johnson will be more happy with the creativity that led to Visser’s score in the left corner in the 29th, setting Scotland on its way, and then Scott’s well-worked try off lineout ball in the 43rd. That made it 20-3 and effectively wrapped up the victory.
“I liked the intent from our boys,” Johnson said. “We spoke about the contact area all week and straight from the start we were aggressive and turned over the ball. We had our chances and scored from them.”
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