Eddie O'Sullivan was unhappy with some refereeing decisions

"Our line-outs did not fire and we could not deliver the type of ball we needed," said the Irish coach.

"Also we got blown off the park by the referee discipline-wise.

"I do not know what the penalty count was but it really killed us off and we lost field position in critical parts of the game."

O'Sullivan said his side had been up for the challenge but things simply had not worked out.

"We could not get into the game really. We could not get our rhythm although we defended really well.

"France built a lead on our errors a lot of the time. At 15-3 we needed the next score but unfortunately they got the try which killed us off."

Ireland skipper Brian O'Driscoll said: "We knew we would need a class performance from one to 15 and that did not quite happen.

"There was not enough of the performance we had been talking about. When we had the ball we did not do enough with it. The scoreline does not lie."

France captain Raphael Ibanez was delighted his side had managed to relieve some of the pressure on them and get their World Cup campaign back on track.

"A win is a win. It was a big effort from the boys," he said.

"Of course, we don't know if it is enough to finish top of the pool but if we carry on like that with such passion and team spirit, everything is possible.

"Tonight, we played with some commitment. Everyone played well and played his part. We were pretty good under pressure, which wasn�t the case 15 days ago [against Argentina], but we still have another game to finish."