Scotland 6-27 France:   France made a positive start to the defence of their Six Nations Championship title with a 27-6 win over Scotland at Murrayfield today.

Man of the match Vincent Clerc scored two tries and fellow winger Julien Malzieu added a third.
   
Scrumhalf Jean-Baptiste Elissalde converted all three and France also benefited from the goal kicking of centre Damien Traille who landed two penalties.
   
The new-look France side, under the recently appointed Marc Lievremont, were much sharper in the forward exchanges and behind the scrum showed a trademark slickness in passing.
   
For last season's wooden spoon recipients, Scotland, this was a disappointingly leaden display from a pack that looked slow and a back division that was not helped by the laboured passing of outhalf Dan Parks.

Scotland head coach Frank Hadden admitted his team had struggled with the basics against the new look Franch outfit under new coach Marc Lievremont.

Murrayfield was a sell-out, and Hadden admitted Scotland were like "rabbits in front of headlights" whenever they came close to the French line.

"We're obviously bitterly disappointed that we've let down the fans who came here today," said the Scottish coach. "We desperately wanted to give them a win but we certainly didn't do that today.

"We made far too many elementary errors."

"France played extremely well, we knew they were bringing a lot of quality to Murrayfield, we knew they had a lot of pace about their side.

"We certainly didn't expect them to get so many fortuitous bounces, there's no doubt about that. Their three tries all came from the way the rugby ball bounces unfortunately."

Hadden added: "I thought some of our build-up work was good, some of our continuity work and some of our offloading. But when we got into their 22 it was like we were like rabbits in front of headlights."