ANDY ROBINSON accused his Scotland side of failing to respect the ball after they lost their RBS 6 Nations opener against France.

Mathieu Bastareaud enjoyed a fairytale return to Test rugby with two tries to inflict defeat on Robinson in his first Six Nations game in charge.

France ran out 18-9 winners at Murrayfield and could have scored even more points after completely dominating possession and territory.

But Robinson insisted it was a case of missed opportunities for his own side, saying: “The most significant difference was in that first half, the two chances that they had, they took beautifully.

“And when we had various opportunities, we didn’t hold onto the ball, particularly in the first half.

“But also I thought the French scramble defence, particularly through (Imanol) Harinordoquy, was very good.

“We needed to control the scoreboard in this game and we were unable to do that through turning over possession in our half during that first 30 minutes.

“That was not really respecting the ball, the ball being knocked out of our hands on four or five occasions.”

Scotland were demolished at the scrum at times, and Robinson believes his forwards will learn the lessons.

“We respect the French scrum and they’re a very good scrummaging side,” he said.

“Our young lads have learnt a lot today and certainly when we got the hit right, we had two or three powerful scrums.

“But we’ve got to get the consistency of that right.”

Robinson admitted the substitution of fly-half Phil Godman early in the second half – which was greeted with ironic cheers at Murrayfield – was tactical.

He said: “I thought we needed to establish some field position. If we were going to keep turning the ball over in our half, it was going to be difficult for us.”