Scotland and Edinburgh lock Grant Gilchrist looking to silence the Stade de France

Grant Gilchrist says silence will be golden for Scotland if they can hush the Stade de France on Saturday.
Grant Gilchrist believes Scotland can overturn the oddsGrant Gilchrist believes Scotland can overturn the odds
Grant Gilchrist believes Scotland can overturn the odds

Head coach Gregor Townsend’s Scots are looking to put their Guinness Six Nations campaign back on track against Les Bleus in Paris after losing to Ireland a fortnight ago.

Scotland’s last victory in the French capital came in 1999 and things have not been much better elsewhere, with their three Championship victories on the road since 2013 all coming against perennial strugglers Italy.

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But while Scotland have some big injury woes with Finn Russell and Stuart Hogg among those ruled out, Edinburgh lock Gilchrist senses an opportunity to end that long wait for delight in Saint-Denis this weekend.

France surrendered a 16-point half-time lead as they lost their opener to Wales before undergoing a 44-8 humbling by England last time out.

Gilchrist said: “Something we’ve been looking towards in the last couple of years is improving our away form and it hasn’t quite happened but this is another great opportunity.

“No win in Paris comes easily as shown by our record there. It is a really hard place to go and win, so this is a great opportunity for us. We believe if we get our stuff right we can win.

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“Away from home you generally have to put in a massive defensive performance and that’s what we’ll be looking to do.

“If we can do that and keep the sting out of France, and if we can stop that fast offloading game that they like to play then we’ll be a long way towards winning the game.

“Obviously we love playing at BT Murrayfield but our energy – even away from home – should come from within the group. We’ve spoke a lot about our energy coming from the 15 bodies on the pitch and obviously at home you get that extra boost from the crowd.

“We won’t have that in Paris but it’s still a brilliant place to play rugby.

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“The noise will be electric, we can still feed off that noise and that energy even if it’s not behind you and playing in those kind of atmospheres is what you want to do as a professional rugby player.

“It doesn’t get much better than playing in venues like that and sometimes the feeling of playing in away grounds and you start to hear the crowd getting a little bit quieter you can feed off that as well, so there’s a few things we’ve looked at.”

Scotland came away from their last outing empty handed as Ireland punished the hosts’ failure to make more of their first-half advantage at BT 
Murrayfield.

“We feel that we’ve a point to prove after the game against Ireland,” Gilchrist said.

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“Basically we felt that we put a hell of a lot of effort into the game and we put a lot of good stuff out there but that five per cent, the detail really cost us.

“We defended really well for the bulk of the game but three lapses gave them three tries and that’s international rugby. You can’t switch off for a split second or you get punished.”