Farcical Friday finale damages the integrity of the Six Nations – and no amount of hype will change that

Brendan Fanning

France's head coach Fabien Galthie and his team are scheduled to face Scotland on March 26. (Photo by ANDY BUCHANAN / AFP)

March 24 2021 04:13 PM

The Six Nations threw an intriguing scenario up on social media yesterday, a taster for Friday night’s finish with a flourish in Paris. So if France secure a bonus point win over Scotland by 20 points, with exactly five tries, then the two countries would be level on match points, points’ difference, and tries scored. So they would share the title. Like wow!

We had barely restored heartbeats to something like normal when we thought of why this game is going ahead on Friday night instead of a month ago. Is the prospect of a title-on-the-line game, in springtime in Paris, not attractive? Absolutely. It’s not exactly rugby’s equivalent of snooker's black ball finish but it could be great entertainment.

Certainly Six Nations are hoping that’s the case. You wouldn’t have had any certainty on the eve of Italy v France, in the first weekend in February, that we’d get to the finish line with all games played as scheduled. Neither would you have figured on that finish line being pushed back to this weekend.

So while we’ll all tune in to see how it pans out, we won’t be following the drip feed of info from Six Nations about the wonder of it all. France’s epic finish against Wales in Stade de France last Saturday night should have been the last act of the 2021 Six Nations Championship. Instead, we have a compromised version of the tournament we like to think is the biggest and best thing outside a World Cup.

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Pause for a moment and go back to the uncertainty around the finish of the pool stages of the Heineken Champions Cup. Covid was reducing the fixture schedule to a high-wire act for each game when suddenly the French reached out and cut the wire.

Once the French Government got involved, the lads and lassies in EPCR could see the credits rolling on their competition. The final twist in the tale would be written from Paris. France appointed itself as the epicentre of efficiency on the avoidance of contamination and declared their teams would not risk drinking from the same trough as the other European teams.

So get yourselves together lads and we’ll see you in the knock-out stages. With that, the last two pool rounds were emptied.

Fast forward to the Six Nations. Mercifully, it all kicked off on time, and with no shortage of talking points: first, the Scots declared they liked Twickenham after all, and beat England; and woeful Wales got off to a winning start against Ireland, facilitated by the sending off of Peter O’Mahony. As it turned out, that was the first of a three-card trick for Wales.

We were still on course going to the third fence, by which point Scotland had a faller against Wales, just like Ireland. Could they recover in time to challenge unbeaten France, who looked very good in sorting Italy and Ireland? That was when France coach Fabien Galthié decided it would be cool to burst the bubble to nip out and watch his son play a match in Paris. As a standalone breach of protocol, it was in the mortal sin mode. Taken as a solo run by the self-appointed high priests of the Covid Cathedral, it was heading for excommunication.

Or not. The Six Nations let themselves down badly fouryears ago with their summary dismissal of Georgia’s chances of a seat at the Championship table. Fair enough, it made no sense to replace the perennially unsuccessful Italians with a side who offered no chance of being any better. The manner of the knockback, however, was in the range of truly awful optics. It looked humble compared to this.

Ask yourself how Galthié kept his job. Ask yourself how France were not dealt with in the way EPCR sorted out games that could not be played this season: a walkover for the non-offending team to the tune of 28-0.

Galthié kept his job because the report of his excursion was accepted by the French Government. And the Six Nations said grand, thanks. They did not borrow from the EPCR model because there is no mechanism for that. With no grand final to the Championship, no pressing date by which the tournament must be done and dusted, the only question was when, not if, the game in question would be replayed.

Coincidentally, the France versus Ireland game frozen off in Stade de France in 2012 – the FFR, who did not control the stadium, were unable to present the pitch in playable condition - was bounced back just a few weeks into one of the free weekends.

So the French Government effectively bailed out the coach of the national team, and they all sailed on, full steam. The collateral damage didn’t seem to bother them. Scotland took the full force of that via player availability, which becomes an issue with the game outside the designated Six Nations window.

So Gregor Townsend’s hands were tied to five English-based players, in which case he left out Saracens wing Sean Maitland. Conversations between the Scots and the English clubs group PRL, and the Six Nations and PRL, couldn’t clear the decks. All of which damages the integrity of the tournament.

But rest assured, France are ok. And that should be the lesson from this. Yes, Six Nations have fallen asleep at the wheel, but France were travelling on a different bus, guided by their president, Bernard Laporte, the former minister for sport. The bus is headed towards the World Cup in France in 2023. You wouldn’t want to wander out in front of that vehicle.