Scotland went down to a strong French team in Perpignan in their warm-up match for next Sunday's World Cup qualifier against Wales.

The Scots trailed 18-0 after 15 minutes before winger Jamie Benn opened the visitors' account in Perpignan.

Julien Rinaldi, Cyril Stacul, Sebastien Planas, Sylvain Houles and Eric Anselme all scored first-half tries for France.

Mick Nanyn and Lee Patterson replied, but Thomas Bosc, Maxime Greseque and Christophe Moly also went over.

Scotland had rested several of their top players and given international debuts to six players as they prepared to face Wales.

France 46-16 Scotland. Appreciate Scotland rested some players ahead of next week's crucial match, but a bit of a tonking all the same! Looks good for Wales.

 Any know the attendance? Did it get good coverage in France? How did Murphy play?

Le Monde gave 7,000 - the Scots gave 6,000 so easily the best crowd of the 4 times the French have hosted the Scots - easily the best result for the French to.  To make it even better for them the earlier game saw France Federal comfortably defeat Scotland A by 36-12

 As to the 'big' game - it was a weaker Scotland side and we're yet to see how Wales go against PNG.  But, I agree, the likelihood of the Welsh getting that 8-point victory just rose considerably in my mind.

Au stade G.-Brutus de Perpignan, la France bat l'Ecosse 46-16 (30-4). Terrain : bon. Temps : doux et ensoleillé, vent faible. Arbitre : M. Ségura. Spectateurs : 7 000.

France : 8 essais Rinaldi (11), Stacul (14), Planas (19), Houlès (34), Anselme (37), Bosc (67), Grésèque (74), Moly (79), 7 transformations Grésèque (11, 14, 19, 34, 37, 67, 79).

Ecosse : 3 essais Benn (25), K. Henderson (43), Patterson (65), 2 transformations Nanyn (43, 65).

FRANCE : Bosc – Murphy, Planas, Houlès, Stacul – (o) Moly, (m) Grésèque – Carrasco – Anselme, Elima – Ferriol, Rinaldi (cap), Fellous. Sont entrés Raguin, Borlin, Sadaoui, Wynne.

ECOSSE : Liddell – Benn, Nanyn, K. Henderson, Todd – (o) Patterson, (m) Hawkyard – R. Fletcher – Lynn, Morrison – MacGillivray, Fisher, Howieson. Sont entrés Marsh, O'Connell, Sostack, Slatter. Evolution du score : 6-0 pour la France, 12-0, 18-0, 18-4, 24-4, 30-4, 30-10, 30-16, 36-16, 40-16

thebrewxi:

France 46-16 Scotland. Appreciate Scotland rested some players ahead of next week's crucial match, but a bit of a tonking all the same! Looks good for Wales.

 Any know the attendance? Did it get good coverage in France? How did Murphy play?

 

it was a good game with plenty of atmosphere.

the local paper gave the crowd as 7,000 the day after but i reckon there could have been a few more.

scotland will be ok when danny brough comes back into the team...sorry but richie hawkyard is a NL2 player and he looks just that!

mick nanyn stood out for the scots for me but justin murphy was quieter than i'd expected him to be.

Maxime Greseque was unbelievable, kicking touchline conversions for fun!

on a more sour note it was interesting to see that the french RU competition (top 14) had one game played at 7pm as opposed to in the afternoon like all the others and guess what...

...yep, it was the game involving perpignan...i'll let you decide whether this had an affect on the crowd

the next day only the local paper had a report on the RL international....not good!!

Good result for France on both counts - score and crowd!

 Hope they get a good crowd this weekend for the PNG match.

hey I'm new to league but I'm a true assie fan how high would you rate france out of 100

aussieman94:

hey I'm new to league but I'm a true assie fan how high would you rate france out of 100

 

i'd say france are the 4th best team in the world, but that's only my opinion.

you'll get the answer to your question in australia next autumn ;)