France 6-16 Wales

I care approximately zero per cent that the game was slightly rubbish. Apart from the early stages of hypothermia, I loved it.

An ugly win is still a win, and to be in the (awesome) Stade de France with tens of thousands of French fans booing, jeering, hissing and howling by the final whistle was brilliant. Especially because we were sat away from the other Welsh fans in the stadium.

Just before kick off

I was pretty pessimistic before kick off – Wales have been pretty diabolical recently, and although France were also very poor last weekend, I thought the pre-tournament Six Nations favourites would be very dangerous on the rebound at home.

Wales’s defence was magnificent, which might not have made for a thrill-a-minute spectacle, but was hugely effective. France, the top ranked northern hemisphere team following last year’s autumn internationals, failed to score a try at home for the first time since they beat Argentina 15-10 in 2010. The last time they failed to score a try in a home defeat was a year earlier, against New Zealand.

But Wales have now shut out France in their last three games (6-16, 16-9 in last year’s Six Nations and the awful 9-8 defeat in the 2011 Rugby World Cup).

French sports newspaper L’Equipe: “From the cockerel to the donkey”

 

On Saturday, Wales absorbed so much French pressure, a complete turnaround from the shambolic first half against Ireland last week. Apart from some poor kicks (obviously disregarding the one which George North gathered to score the game’s only try), Dan Biggar was much more confident than last week. Leigh Halfpenny deserved his man-of-the-match award for his touchline conversion alone: I cheered just as much as that as I did at the try, considering it meant France had to score twice if they were going to deny Wales anything from the match.

There was pandemonium in the block of Wales fans below me when George North scored his late try

 

Most impressive was the whole team’s spirit. On the back of eight consecutive and increasingly desperate defeats, I still feared the worst at half-time, when it was 3-3. At 6-6, with about 10 minutes to go, it wasn’t hard for Welsh fans to imagine conceding a late penalty and go down to yet another “plucky defeat” (most recent examples: Australia in the autumn, Australia in the summer x3…).

But they dug deep and provided the one spark of magic in the game. It looked a superb try from my vantage point, miles away, but the stadium doesn’t do replays and so I still haven’t seen it – excuse me while I catch up with Scrum V on iPlayer.