How Scotland denied France a Grand Slam and stopped their suffocating defence

Scotland caused an upset as fourteen-man France saw their Grand Slam ambitions dissipate against Scotland at Murrayfield in round 4 of the Six Nations. 

Mohamed Haouas collected a costly red card and subsequently picked up a three-week ban for his punch on Jamie Ritchie as Scotland cruised to a comprehensive 28-17 defeat of France.

While Haouas' card counted heavily against the Grand Slam hopes, Omar Mouneimne has highlighted a few areas of the game where Scotland got the upper hand over the French and ultimately outplayed Fabien Galthie's men.

The professional defence coach, currently working with Worcester Warriors, says that Scotland knew they had to dominate contact, particularly at the attacking breakdown, and make sure that they won the gain line. Otherwise, they had no chance against the French and their suffocating defence. France are the Jackal Kings and are the dark arts of slowing down ball and getting stuck into your attacking breakdown.

It is evident from the clips you're going to see below what Scotland focused on was dominating contact on attack.

So how did they do this? They used their footwork and accelerated through contact and once they were taken to the ground, they made sure they fought on the floor. Meaning they double rolled, long recoil (placed the ball back as far as they could) and fought to keep the Jackals at bay. 

When they couldn't dominate contact, they fought to double roll or at least extend their arms as hard as they could. Now even in the second half, when France were down a man,  they were incredible hard to breakdown and kept in absolutely dead slow ball management multiple times and took the shape out of Scotland's attack because of how well they slowed the ball down.