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France coach Guy Noves says his side must continue to strive for improvement after they continued a trend of falling narrowly short in games with a 19-16 Six Nations defeat to England at Twickenham.
A late try from Ben Te’o rescued victory for England – their 15th in succession – but France could consider themselves somewhat unfortunate after troubling their hosts for long periods.
“I think that the French team can compete with any team,” reflected Noves in a post-match news conference.
“Unfortunately, we lost by two points against Australia, we lost by three points against England, we lost by five points against New Zealand.
“We are not so far away. But, if we look at this game, we have been dominated at some moments. We have to keep working. We can improve ourselves.
“We have what we deserve. We did not deserve to win at the end of the match.”
France’s defeat was particularly harsh on Louis Picamoles, who was the game’s standout player.
“We are more than frustrated. We are angry with ourselves because it was a game that we had to win,” the powerful number eight was quoted as saying by L’Equipe.
“We are getting sick of saying that we are on the right track, that our defeats are encouraging. Now, we need victories to keep going with more confidence.
“Once again, there were many positive things but there was too much indiscipline, naivety and a lack of technical accuracy. In front of us, the [England] team was pragmatic and scored the points that we gave them.”
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