Scotland 16-20 France: 'Wasteful hosts left confused by late TMO drama'

[CharlieH]

We didn't know it at the time but it turns out Scotland's nerve-shredding endgame at the Principality last weekend was a mere warm-up routine for the jaw-dropping uncertainty of the final minutes at Murrayfield. "Rugby, bloody hell," as a great Scotsman never said.

Time passed slowly in those closing minutes. Not a ball was kicked, not a pass made, not a ruck hit. The clock was red. The score was 20-16 to France. Every last person in the stadium had eyes fixed not on the players on the pitch but on the replays on the TV screens.

 

Had Scotland scored a match-winning try in the last play or not? Had Sam Skinner got the ball down on the tryline to steal it?

No, said referee Nic Berry. Possibly, said TMO Brian MacNeice. It played out for what felt like an age at the end of a game that felt everlasting at times. Amid the fug of confusion, MacNeice pulled up replay after replay for Berry to look at and - eureka! - appeared to be leading Berry in the direction of try.

Is that the ball on a French boot? Yes. But does the ball now touch the ground? Yes, again. "Clearly," said Gregor Townsend, who was celebrating victory, along with a stadium in raptures, when MacNeice started to moonwalk his way back from his original thought process, a change of mind that Berry now agreed with. No try. Try. No try. Game over.

 

• Late TMO call denies Scotland as France hold on
• Listen: BBC Radio Scotland Rugby Podcast

 

 

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