Gregor Townsend calls for drastic improvements from Scotland

Pete Horne's failure to find touch handed Romain Ntamack the opener 13 minutes in but despite being outplayed, Scotland were relieved to go in at half-time only seven points down.

France have had a nightmare start to the Guinness Six Nations themselves after throwing away a 16-point lead against Wales before crashing heavily to England.

But there was no repeat of their second-half collapse against the Welsh as Yoann Huget struck just after half-time, with Gregory Alldritt then adding two late scores either side of Ali Price's consolation.

Now Townsend says his team must cut out the mistakes or it will be three losses in a row against Warren Gatland's team.

"We missed the first 10 to 15 minutes with bits of detail which we had been previously doing well," he said.

"We started the match poorly – the first 20 minutes which after France's recent results gave them confidence.

"That was through our own errors and we put ourselves on the backfoot. We didn't finish off the opportunities we should have for the pressure we'd built up especially after France went down to 14 men when Huget was sin-binned.

"Then we lost a try after half-time which again gave France more confidence and points and we didn't come back from that after it. It's a disappointing day given our inability to capitalise on our opportunities and score tries.

"Failing to capitalise on opportunities and being clinical will be one of the areas we will have to work on ahead of the next game against Wales.

"That's the element which is the biggest when it comes to winning or losing. When we are accurate we win games and when we don't we lose."

Scotland have cut out their nasty habit of allowing one mistake to spiral into several in recent times.

But against Ireland and now France the Dark Blues have been masters of their own downfall and skipper Greig Laidlaw admits he has no idea why.

"We don't know why we keep coming up with errors because we trained really well all week," he said. "We just need to be mindful of that and get on top of it for the next game.

"It might be concentration but I don't think it's about our skill set because we trained extremely well all week.

"We need to be vigilant because it's giving teams a lot of pressure releases and certainly makes it harder for us to stamp our authority on the game."

Victory has relieved some of the pressure building on the shoulders of France coach Jacques Brunel after that mortifying Wales defeat was followed by a 44-8 loss at Twickenham.

But the Frenchman admits their next clash with Ireland in Dublin will determine whether they have shaken off their painful start to the competition.

He said: "Of course satisfaction is our feeling after the bad loss to England. We had to show unity and strength. It wasn't an easy match but the team has shown good character.

"We still have a long road ahead of us. The coming weeks are going to tell us what the value of our team really is."

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