France: We're not at Wales' level

France coach Philippe Saint-Andre admitted his side only had themselves to blame after Wales condemned Les Bleus to their second consecutive loss of the 2015 Six Nations.


Dan Biggar's try and the boot of Leigh Halfpenny was enough for Warren Gatland's side to secure victory in the Stade de France on Saturday evening.


Wales have now beaten Saint-Andre's France side four times in a row, a feat they had not achieved since the 1950s, while France have lost to both Ireland and Wales since beating Scotland on the opening weekend.


France threatened briefly at the start and the end of the second half, Brice Dulin crossing for a late try that proved to be little more than a consolation.


But Saint-Andre's side were well beaten in the end and are now staring down the barrel at a fourth consecutive bottom-half finish in the Six Nations table.


"Of course when you lose an international match there are many reasons," Saint-Andre said.


"Even if we tried to do things, we took too long to get our game going. You can't spend your time defending in international rugby," he added.


"The only thing we can do now is lift our heads and work. We were lacking too much to win the game today. We gave away incredibly stupid penalties.


"You can't say we're a great team at the moment. Some of our players struggle to last 80 minutes and we know that.


"You have to congratulate Wales. They were pragmatic, and we're not at the moment."


"Even if our defence was in place, we can't defend permanently.


"We scored a try, we had another try refused for a slight forward pass.


"But with a 50 percent success rate with the boot it's difficult to win an international match.


"We had two or three players injured, we lost both our centres and Morgan Parra hurt his knee.


"But despite all that, we should've won the match. We need to pick ourselves up and work hard on the basics.


"We lacked too much to win the match."


@RBS6Nations2015 & Agence France-Presse