Laporte unhappy despite victory

Laporte said France played well for an hour

France coach Bernard Laporte accused his side of "mental fragility" after their nervy 27-26 win over Argentina.

Les Bleus were 27-9 up at one point but allowed the Pumas back into the match and were hanging on towards the end.

Laporte said: "We could have humiliated them, but we showed mental fragility and we nearly died of fright.

"It's good in a way, because if we had won by a 40-point margin, everybody would have been euphoric and that would not have let us analyse our mistakes."

France captain Raphael Ibanez admitted he left the stadium with a "strange feeling".

He said: "The Argentinians pushed us in the last 20 minutes, but on the whole we controlled the game.

"We had plenty of possession, we were more creative. The group showed it had enormous resources and offensive qualities.

"But Argentina are a difficult team because they have very good players, who are naturally aggressive and have exemplary attitudes.

"(Argentina full-back Juan Martin) Hernandez manages the team very well on the pitch. Because of all that, this is a very important win for us."

Hernandez claimed his side only had themselves to blame for their defeat.

"Once more, as we did against Italy, we failed at line-outs and paid for losing concentration," he said.

Coach Marcelo Loffreda saw plenty of positives to take from his side's European tour, which also included wins over England and Italy.

He said: "We did play at a high level in some parts of the three games, but we had a huge mental strength."