Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend praised his side for their \u201cbest performance\u201d in the Six Nations, despite losing 32-21 to France in Paris.<\/p>\n
Townsend\u2019s side came into the clash in good form, winning their first two games against England and Wales, but were disrupted early on after second-row Grant Gilchrist was sent off for a dangerous tackle in the seventh minute.<\/p>\n
The numbers would balance out minutes later as Mohamed Haouas was also red-carded for head-to-head contact with Ben White, making him the first player to get sent off twice in Six Nations history.<\/p>\n
Once the dust settled after the first quarter Scotland found themselves 19-0 down but did tremendously well to pull the game back to within four points. However, a late Gael Fickou try denied the Scots a chance at winning and gave Les Bleus a hard-earned bonus point win.<\/p>\n
Townsend admitted to one or two disappointing outcomes but was still delighted with the effort shown by his stars.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very pleased with the performance, I thought it was our best performance of the championship so far,\u201d said Townsend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m disappointed with the result but proud of how the players played, and proud of how they controlled the situation, the emotions, and how they adapted to being a man down and how much belief they had in each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m disappointed we didn\u2019t take the two or three opportunities which would have led to us winning the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel we have improved from our previous game, there will be so much which will come out of this game for us. There will be things we have to do better but there will be belief in how we played against one of the best teams in the world at their home stadium.\u201d<\/p>\n
Townsend broke down why his side went 19-0 behind and felt it was a pity Scotland could not complete the comeback.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first phase, we didn\u2019t defend well enough around the ruck area for their first try,” he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen we took a little while to get back into it when we went a man down and then there was an interception (from a Finn Russell pass, for the third try).<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring that period, especially when we got ourselves back into it, we had a lot of the game. We had the ball over the line twice, it was held up once and bounced over the line, and another where France were penalised for offside and we didn\u2019t score in the corner.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have been good to get in at half-time and been closer on the scoreboard but the conversation at half-time was that we were here to win and this is how we are going to do it.<\/p>\n