France 46 Scotland 19:At about 8.15pm on Saturday, with England's result in Cardiff confirmed, Les Bleus were awarded the Six Nations title for the third time in four years, but in an empty stadium echoing to the sound of a scratched, sticking record of We Are The Champions.

It was a curiously bathetic contrast to the climactic suspense of an afternoon in which fingernails must have been bitten to the bone across France and Ireland as final-minute decisions by television match officials in both Paris and Rome helped to decide the destiny of the title.

Given the significance video replays currently seem to have, it is bizarre that they are not shown on the big screen in the stadium and the crowds remain uninformed. It needs to be rectified come the World Cup.

Appropriately it was a man called Elvis Vermeulen who dispatched the Irish to Heartbreak Hotelwith a little help from the video referee, Simon McDowell, an Ulsterman and, in another coincidence, the same touch judge who broke Scottish hearts here two years ago when he ruled Allister Hogg had a foot out as he scored a try that could have earned the Scots a draw.

Hogg was involved again on Saturday, claiming that he held up Vermeulen as the substitute number eight was driven over in the final play of an 80 minutes in which French hopes had ridden a rollercoaster as Les Bleus attempted to open the margin of more than 23 points that would give them the title, soaring with every home try, plummeting each time the Scots fought back.

"It was a crazy match to watch from the bench," said Vermeulen. "Every time we scored we all thought, 'phew, we only need five, seven points, however many', then the Scots would score. We ended up like a lot of Einsteins on the touchline, constantly doing the maths."

With 18 minutes to go Olivier Milloud's try made France champions elect by three points; 14 minutes later the Scottish prop Euan Murray popped over and the France captain, Raphael Ibanez, fell on his knees, convinced the title had gone west for the sake of four points: "I thought, God, it's all over but Imanol Harinordoquy came to me and said we had another kick-off, another chance."

And then Vermeulen earned a place in the history books. "I did a pick-and-go just short of the line," he said. "One of the Scots tackled me around the shoulders, I turned and was pushed into the in-goal area. I fell on my left side and moved my right shoulder and put the ball down.

"I was sure I had scored but a lot of players came round me and (Hogg) got his hand under the ball so, when everyone pulled away, you could see it."

The back-row forward from Clermont-Auvergne was brought on with seven minutes remaining and, in the same way that his team needed this win, with that margin, to set them on course for the World Cup, so he personally needed to get back to the form he showed in the autumn, when he was the only Frenchman to look halfway decent against the All Blacks.

It was, he felt, important to keep the mathematics out of his mind once he was on the pitch.

"I knew there was a four-point deficit but, if you have it in your thoughts, you don't play well. So I just tried to enjoy myself and keep going forwards, always forwards."

And that, metaphorically speaking, is what France can do after this victory. The next time any of the French players involved in this epic will play in this stadium is September 7th, when they open the tournament against Argentina.

For all Bernard Laporte's efforts to instil Anglo-Saxon consistency, the old doubts remain about which France will turn up on any given day. On Saturday caution had to be thrown to the winds. Pierre Mignoni injected pace and his break to set up Yannick Jauzion's try was the highlight of the afternoon. He must surely have overtaken Dimitri Yachvili and Jean-Baptiste Elissalde in the scrumhalf pecking order. Lionel Beauxis was composed at outhalf although he tended to lie deep and make life tough for his backs. However, the front row dominated in the scrum, while Jauzion was at his imperious best at centre.

This was a breathtaking afternoon and evidence that there is plenty of life in the old championship. Even so the France manager, Jo Maso, could not keep his mind away from the autumn: "We have to be far more rigorous, ask more of ourselves. We will keep working on our set piece, because it is to a rugby team what scales are to an orchestra, but we need to work on our attacking game. There is plenty to be done if we want to take on the All Blacks."

That is indeed the case but France will savour this title.

FRANCE:Poitrenaud (Toulouse; Traille, Biarritz, 74); Clerc (Toulouse; Dominici, Stade Français, 77), Marty (Perpignan), Jauzion (Toulouse), Heymans (Toulouse); Beauxis (Stade Français), Mignoni (Clermont-Auvergne); Milloud (Bourgoin), Ibanez (capt, Wasps), De Villiers (Stade Français), Nallet (Castres; Pape, Castres, 56), Thion (Biarritz), Betsen (Biarritz), Bonnaire (Bourgoin), Harinordoquy (Biarritz; Vermeulen, Clermont-Auvergne, 77).

SCOTLAND:Paterson (capt, Edinburgh); S Lamont (Northampton), Dewey (Edinburgh), Henderson (Glasgow; Di Rollo, Edinburgh, 78), Walker (Ospreys); Parks (Glasgow; R Lamont, Glasgow, 53), Lawson (Gloucester, Cusiter, Borders, 62); Kerr (Borders; Jacobsen, Edinburgh, 65), Ford (Borders; Hall, Borders, 65), E Murray (Glasgow), Hines (Perpignan), S Murray (Edinburgh; Hamilton, Leicester, 48), Taylor (Edinburgh), Hogg (Edinburgh), Beattie (Glasgow; Callam, 53).

Referee: C Joubert(South Africa).