France coach condemns Regan

By Jean-Paul Couret

PARIS (Reuters) - France coach Marc Lievremont was full of praise on Sunday for the England Six Nations side who won 24-13 at the Stade de France on Saturday but again condemned hooker Mark Regan.

"I want to pay tribute to the outstanding performance of the England team," he told reporters. "They were faultless. They played at a very high level for 80 minutes in a typical English style, very classical and always relevant."

Lievremont said during the game he had felt he was watching a replay of the World Cup semi-final, four months ago to the day, when England defeated France then coached by Bernard Laporte.

"Once again, they scored an early try. When they led 10-0 after 15 minutes, I knew that against a team as experienced as like England it would be very difficult to come back," he said.

Lievremont said England had stopped France from developing the fast, wide and expansive game that enabled them to score seven tries against Scotland and Ireland.

"They were perfect in that field. They slowed down the game, they cut our wings and we failed to find the solution," he said.

"Their defence was really well-organised and they didn't give us real opportunities to counter-attack.

Lievremont said that last hope was to see England collapse at the end of the game as they did when they lost 26-19 to Wales at Twickenham after leading 19-6 just after the break and struggled to beat Italy 23-19 in Rome.