France 35-16 Scotland: What Townsend said

Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend told ITV he has "mixed feelings" after his side's defeat.

"We asked the players to deliver a performance of effort and physicality and they did that," Townsend said. "Our forwards played outstanding rugby at times, really fronted up.

"We didn't get the breaks, the bad luck before half-time [with a disallowed try] and then a mistake and they scored just after half-time. We were in that game for a lot of it.

"We were a bum cheek away from converting in the first half when Blair Kinghorn was just in touch and they are a very good defence. You need to have patience and accuracy and that was little bit missing today."

Townsend offered no opinion on Peato Mauvaka's sin binning, preferring to "leave that to others to decide."

He added: "These things can be decisive as we know. I am just proud the team fronted up tonight and even at the end to deny France another try, a maul try, they were very aggressive."

Asked if Scotland deserved to finish higher than fourth, he replied: "No, if we don't win when we have a lot of the game, that's where we are going to finish.

"It is a very tough competition. Teams can't play well every game no-one won a Grand Slam.

"We are a quality side, it just didn't go our way this year."

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