TNT Sports
France rue missed chance
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Published 20/11/2003 at 15:21 GMT
France coach Bernard Laporte said he had no regrets about his team's performance at the World Cup despite finishing fourth after losing Thursday's playoff to New Zealand 40-13. It was France's second worst finish in the tournament's history but Laporte said he and the players had nothing to be ashamed of.
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"If you take a step back and look at it we've had a good World Cup -- we made the semi-finals," Laporte said. "We shouldn't lose sight of the fact we reached the semi-finals of the World Cup. While we shouldn't cover up the truth of what went wrong, we should be content with that."
Laporte said no one had seriously given the French any chance of winning the tournament but the team showed they were able to compete at the highest level.
He said the first half performance against Ireland was the side's best display of the World Cup but they were unable to repeat that display in the semi-final with England.
"There were times when we didn't play as well and there were times that we played fantastic, like in the first half against the Irish," Laporte said. "If we had played like this throughout, I am sure we would have made the final.
"We need to look at what went right and what went wrong. We think we had the team to beat England but rather than regrets we need to look at what went right and what went wrong and focus on the young players coming through."
French scrumhalf Dmitri Yachvili blamed Thursday's loss on the team's lack of match practice. The French played a mostly second-string side and while they held the All Blacks to 14-6 at halftime, New Zealand ran away with the match in the second half.
"I felt that they played very well collectively, we now know each other off by heart...the defensive movement up in the line wasn't always co-ordinated perfectly. We lost some tries from that," said Yachvili, who kicked as conversion, a penalty and a drop goal.
"The team came together only three to four days before the game and they didn't have the same rhythm as the All Blacks, and that cost us."
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