Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend admitted he was bemused by the decision to not upgrade France’s Peato Mauvaka’s yellow card to a red after his headbutt on Ben White in their Six Nations Super Saturday clash.
France regained the Six Nations title for the first time in three years with a 35-16 victory over Scotland in Paris, Les Bleus proving too strong in the end as three second-half tries saw them pick up their second championship of the Fabien Galthie era.
Although that emphatic second-half surge saw them romp to the title, the first half was much closer and France only led 16-13 at the break thanks to Yoram Moefana’s try.
They also could easily have trailed and been reduced to 14 players had Tom Jordan’s disallowed try stood and hooker Mauvaka been sent off for the blatant headbutt on White on the 20th minute.
Indeed, the sending of Mauvaka to the sin bin saw the tide start to turn with Finn Russell slotting the resulting penalty from close range to get the visitors up and running on the scoreboard.
For Townsend, there was no rationale behind not upgrading the card considering White “got collided in the head”
“Well the decision not to raise it to a red card was because there was not excessive force,” said Townsend.
“I’m not sure that’s really the criteria for a non-tackle incident. It clearly was a non-tackle incident, it was after the whistle. So, if there was head contact and that was intentional, it shouldn’t be anything to do with the force that was involved.
“I feel sorry for Ben White here, because he did nothing. He was first of all pushed to the ground, and a push is nothing in rugby, and then he got collided in the head, so I don’t know how it wasn’t raised to a red card.
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England head coach Steve Borthwick believes his players have stated a big claim for British and Irish Lions selection and can see Ben Earl having a future in the centre.
However, Townsend did concede that France were worthy winners of the 2025 title.
“But whether that has had anything to do with the final result, who knows, because France deserved the win, deserve to be champions, they’re a quality side,” he said.
“Even though we played really well at times tonight, France were the better team in the end.”
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