Scotland captain Greig Laidlaw paid tribute to France last night, but felt that he and his team-mates had let themselves down as they failed to end the 20-year wait for a victory in Paris.
The scrum-half had said before the game he had told his team-mates he was sick of talking positively ahead of big matches away from home in the Six Nations Championship, only to end up having to try to explain away another defeat. However, that was the chore that confronted him once again last night.
“It’s disappointing as we feel as though we are letting ourselves down in some senses, but France played well,” said.
“We were in the game at half time but losing a try so soon after the restart was crucial.”
The Scots had been extremely fortunate to be within a score of their opponents after a first half that was dominated by the home team, but in which they managed to build only a 10-3 lead.
Since they had allowed Wales to stage a tournament record comeback on their previous performance at the Stade de France, the Scots might have taken considerable encouragement from being within a score of their opponents.
But that changed immediately after the interval, leaving Laidlaw to lament: “If we hadn’t given them five points straight after the break then we feel we could have gone on and won the game.”
France were denied two first-half tries because of knock-ons in the build-up to crossing the Scottish line, but it was the visitors whose overall play was riddled with mistakes across the pitch and Laidlaw admitted to being at a loss to explain why that has been such a feature of their play.
“Do we know why we are making errors? The short answer is no,” he said. “It’s something we need to look at as we trained well all week.
“We need to be vigilant as it allows teams to release the pressure and doesn’t allow us to exert our pressure on the game.
“We broke their line a couple of times and could have scored but we didn’t take those opportunities which is disappointing. We win when we keep a hold of the ball and we didn’t do that today.”
The intensity of the French play was considerable as they sought to rebound from two defeats and, in particular, a heavy beating by England that has seen them heavily criticised.
But Laidlaw reckoned the Scots should have expected the French fightback, not least having done battle with the world’s second-ranked side Ireland on their last outing.
“It was tough … all international matches are tough and we have a couple of beaten-up boys in our changing room,” he said.
“In terms of pure physicality, I thought the Irish game was a bit tougher. There was a bit more space out there to be found and we just never found it.
"It was a physical match and we were expecting that and we felt we were ready for it.”
Head coach Gregor Townsend, meanwhile, reckoned his side had given away the initiative in the earliest stages of yesterday’s encounter, allowing the French to regain belief in themselves after those very different setbacks against Wales and England.
“We missed the first 10 to 15 minutes with bits of detail that we had been previously doing well.
"We started the match poorly the first 20 minutes which, after France's recent results, gave them confidence,” he said.
“That was through our own errors and we put ourselves on the backfoot. We didn’t finish off the opportunities we should have for the pressure we'd built up especially after France went down to 14 men.
“Then we lost a try after half-time which again gave France more confidence and points and we didn’t come back from that after it.
"It’s a disappointing day given our inability to capitalise on our opportunities and score tries.”
It was a day that ultimately saw the French denied four tries after the officials looked at television replays, indicating that it might have been an even heavier beating.
However, the Scots also felt they had crucially failed to take advantage of the chances they managed to create to claim scores that might have been against the overall run of play, but could potentially have changed the momentum and allowed French doubts to creep back in.
“Failing to capitalise on opportunities and being clinical will be one of the areas we will have to work on ahead of the next game against Wales,” he said.
“That’s the element that is the biggest when it comes to winning or losing.
"When we are accurate we win games and when we don’t we lose.
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