Below-par France happy with bonus point

French coach Marc Lièvremont was unconvinced by his team's performance despite a big 46-19 win over Canada at a wet McLean Park in Napier on Sunday.

France had a slow start to the match and the Canadians gave as good as they got for most of the first half. France captain Aurélien Rougerie admitted his team struggled to get into the match with handling errors being the major difference between the teams in the first half.

Vincent Clerc was one of few successes for Les Bleus. The wing scored three tries in the match, becoming the first Frenchman to have scored two Rugby World Cup hat-tricks.
Clerc's haul makes him the joint top scorer at RWC 2011. He now has four tries in total, tying him with Fiji's Vereneki Goneva.

The main positive for Lièvremont was that, despite their less than stellar performance, his team still escaped from the match with a bonus point.

"That try bonus rewards the players but also the fans who came to support us," he said.

"Obviously everything wasn't perfect but I am not going to pull a face after each game."

Crowley's frustration

Napier had stunning weather all day but the heavens opened an hour and a half before kick-off, leaving the teams to deal with less than ideal conditions. But Lièvremont refused to make excuses for his team.

"It certainly had an impact but the Canadians had the same conditions as us and they got into the game much better that we did," said the coach.

Canada coach Kieran Crowley's frustration with the outcome was clear to see.
He pointed to two short periods in the match where his team let France off the hook, one just before half-time and another in the second half.

"It was very disappointing from our perspective, we were nine points behind at half-time and lost 14 points in the last five minutes of the second half," he said.

"We had reasonable patches, but we can’t afford to do that at this level."