France recorded their
eighth successive victory in the Six Nations when they beat
Ireland on Sunday, but there were contrasting emotions
afterwards from skipper (Thierry Dusautoir) and coach (Marc
Lièvremont).
Dusautoir praised his
team's solidarity as they hung on
to beat Ireland 25-22
despite being outscored by three tries to one, whereas
Lièvremont systematically picked apart the French
performance.
"We are really happy,"
Dusautoir told the BBC. "It was really important to
win. We did it, but it was really tough. I don't think it
was the game of the year but it was very important to win.
"We stayed in the game and
scored a lot of penalties, but we scored just one try and
the Irish scored three, that's why it stayed tight to the
end of the game. I'm really proud of my team, it's never
easy to play in Ireland," added the inspirational France
captain.
But Lièvremont, by
contrast, appeared high dissatisfied by the performance, if
not by the result. He was critical of most aspects of his
team's display and added they would have to work extremely
hard on the training pitch over the next fortnight before
they take on England in what's effectively become a Six
Nations decider.
"I feel that we suffered
physically, we lost in terms of our vision and our
discipline at very important moments. There were wasted
balls. They manage to score tries against us. They put us
under pressure for 80 minutes and we weren't very fast," he
told reporters.
"Conceding three tries is
far too many," Lièvremont added as he warmed to his theme.
"The side were too impatient, they lacked discipline, they
were limited technically and wasted too many balls," he
said.
"While the Irish put us
under pressure for 80 minutes if we had shown more patience
we could have finished them off earlier. I am sorry that we
didn't score more than one try," added Lièvremont.
The French coach did,
however, manage to find some positives after his side's
eighth successive victory in the Six Nations.
"I liked that we bounced
back straight away [from Ireland's early try]. We all knew
the context of this match, it could have been a total
disaster, but nonetheless we fought our way back and we
managed to get into a position where we were leading," he
mused.
But his overall tone was
definitely one of displeased teacher, especially with the
looming spectre of facing up to Chris Ashton and company in
two weeks time.
"England are very much
ahead of everyone else at the moment, they have a very
physical team, they're intense and they accelerate a lot and
it would appear that the five other nations are developing
at a much lower level," said Lièvremont.
"We know that it is going
to be a difficult match. We know that there are a few issues
that need to be resolved, but we are certain we can move
forward with this," he added.
Lièvremont also gave his
backing to Stade Toulousain full-back Clément Poitrenaud -
who's early knock-on led to Ireland's opening try - and then
named an unchanged 23-man squad for the England encounter.
