Gregor Townsend blamed his Scotland side’s inconsistency after they were handed a deserved 27-10 defeat by France on Saturday.
Romain Ntamack, Yoann Huget and Gregory Alldritt’s late double secured a bonus-point win for Les Bleus to get them up and running in this year’s Championship.
Scotland did cross for a second-half try through Ali Price but it was too little too late and they have now slipped to successive defeats in this year’s Guinness Six Nations.
The 20-year wait for a win in Paris continues for the Scots – much to Townsend’s disappointment.
“Some of our attack play was good but in the end we didn’t get the tries when we got into the 22 and that’s down to poor accuracy or poor decisions.”
“If we look at our performance it was certainly worse than expected what we put out there,” he said.
“France played well and they brought more energy to the game than we did especially early on.
“That got the crowd behind them and they played with confidence. It wasn’t a good enough start for us in either half.
“There were times we played well at the end of the first half and second half, but that’s not good enough at this level to do it in fits and starts.
“There were a number of lows, I felt our kick chase wasn’t good enough, something we have done really well throughout the Championship previously.
“Our accuracy when we got into the France 22, we turned over the ball too often, our line speed in defence which had been a real positive against Ireland – that wasn’t there.
Scotland did finish the second half promisingly, Price going over while both Adam Hastings and Darcy Graham both caught the eye.
That gave Townsend cause for optimism but first the head coach will need to tend to his walking wounded ahead of their round four clash with Wales at home.
“Some of the players are out long term like Ryan Wilson and Huw Jones, but we’ll wait and see about Finn Russell and Stuart Hogg,” he added.
“But whether those players were playing or not, we didn’t show the energy we have to show to win away from home against France and that’s really disappointing.
“I think the bench made a great impact and that’s a credit to them, they took the attack to France, but it was too little too late.”
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