Late surge sees Wales home against Scotland in Six Nations

Gareth Davies and Wales, in red, were able to find space to run when they needed to against Scotland at Cardiff. Michael Steele / Getty Images

Wales extended Scotland’s losing Six Nations championship run to nine matches with second-half tries from Jamie Roberts and George North securing a 27-23 victory on Saturday night.

Lacklustre Wales, second best for an hour under a closed roof at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, sparked into life when Roberts barged over. North later touched down after a strong diagonal run.

Wales, who rallied from 13-0 down to draw 16-16 with Ireland in their tournament opener last weekend, scored the game’s opening try through scrumhalf Gareth Davies but Scotland replied soon after via winger Tommy Seymour.

Three Greig Laidlaw penalties put Scotland 16-13 up midway through the second half before Wales pulled clear.

Duncan Taylor’s late converted try proved only a consolation.

“Historically we tend to get gradually better as the tournament goes on. That’s a bit better than last week, but you’ve got to give credit to Scotland. The way they’re playing they don’t deserve to be zero from two matches,” Wales captain Sam Warburton told the BBC.

Scotland, beaten 15-9 at home by England a week ago, have not defeated Wales since 2007 and have not won at Cardiff for 14 years.

Earlier, Ireland's hopes of winning the tournament for a third successive year took a big dent as they were beaten 10-9 by France in Paris.

Joe Schmidt’s side had looked on target to clinch their first win, having drawn with Wales last weekend, as they led 9-3 going into the final 10 minutes.

But Maxine Medard’s try, which was converted by Jules Plisson, put France ahead, and they closed out victory with little trouble.

Guy Noves, the French coach, was thrilled with his side’s second successive victory in the tournament, which came after they had narrowly beaten Italy 23-21 the week before.

“There’s a lot of solidarity between the players,” he said of his team, who top the table but will be usurped by England today if they triumph against Italy in Rome.

“The players who were in difficulty last week in defence had a huge game. If you add what we did well last week with the attitude we showed today, I think we’re starting to get on the right track.”

Ireland had been the better side in the first half, but Noves changed his props early in the second half and they were the driving force behind full-back Medard’s try, wearing down the Irish forwards.

“I don’t want to hear that changing the props was the winning strategy. It’s a victory for all of the coaching staff,” Noves said.

“We worked very well this week and we looked at a lot of things that we didn’t do very well last week.

“I salute the players’ ferocious will to impose their game and not let Ireland dictate play.”

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