France coach Fabien Galthie on Sunday called for consistency after watching his team go top of the Six Nations table with a 35-22 victory over Italy.
France opened up a 23-10 halftime lead in their second game at the Stade de France, but were forced to see off a stubborn Italy comeback to notch a bonus-point win.
Former Les Bleus scrumhalf Galthie said that the match had been “tough.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The first half was almost perfect, we made two errors,” he said. “In the second half, we were less consistent and the team was battered by the Italians.”
France were guilty of taking their foot off the pedal and lost some of the shape of their defensive line that worked so well in the previous weekend’s opening win over England. They also conceded 10 penalties, coming on top of seven given away against England.
“We were less consistent than against England in our defensive strategy,” Galthie said.
While acknowledging that it was “difficult to sum up things after two matches,” Galthie said: “We have two wins and our goal was to win the two matches.”
France’s South Africa-born lock Paul Willemse said that the match had been “frustrating at the end.”
“We got the bonus point, so are happy with that, but there were a lot of errors, especially discipline, which we need to fix as quickly as possible,” Willemse said. “The atmosphere is great in the team... It’s about building our own history and we’re starting to do that now.”
Italy coach Franco Smith said that he had been heartened by his team’s performance following the opening week’s 42-0 drubbing by Wales.
“We’re not angry with the performance,” the former Springbok said. “We made some mistakes in the first 15, 20 minutes, but then we played much better than last week. Obviously, there’s still work to do. I’m too proud a person to say I’m happy with the scoreline. Last week, we played a very good Welsh team ... and even tonight we left some points out there. We’d like to be as competitive as possible.”
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