Mignot wants France to finish strong

How has the week of preparation been after the defeat in Italy?

Once you lose, it's never simple. We are really disappointed with the Italian loss because it was a game within reach. Unfortunately, we made too many mistakes to be able to win it and though we created a lot of opportunities we didn’t provide the final pass and we made blunders which were expensive in the end.

What do you put the loss down to?

It is hard to explain but we certainly were not short of any commitment despite missing some players. We wanted to win this game but sometimes it's a series of little things that in the end, become too much - we want to play too fast, score too quickly and so on.  We certainly didn’t give up and it was 12-12 in the 80th minute and we made a mistake.

Nevertheless, you are still in position to win the tournament?

Yes although it doesn’t depend only on us. We'll have to watch what Ireland do but in our heads we will think only one thing: to win in England. At the start of the tournament, we knew that there would be difficult times, it was a new adventure for this group that has gone well enough so far so we now will go to England totally committed to winning. We don’t want to come back with any regrets.

Did you expect to arrive at the final match in position to win the tournament?

At the start of the tournament, no player was claiming that we would definitely defend our title or redo the Grand Slam.  That’s because you know that the year after the World Cup is always difficult with lots of changes among the players, and you can see that with England this year who have already lost two games. It’s never easy to set up a new programme in just a few weeks. It is a a cliché but rea really just took every game as it came.

For the moment, apart from that disappointment in Italy, we have very positive things like our victory in Ireland to reflect on. We want to finish the tournament in style!

Interview translated from the FFR website