Outhalf Finn Russell lamented Scotland's lack of discipline as they went down 15-8 to France in their Six Nations opener in Paris.

Dougie Fife scored a try just before half-time and Greg Laidlaw converted a penalty but Camille Lopez responded with five penalties of his own to boot France to victory.

“Really disappointing not to get the win,” Russell told BBC One. “We had a lot of chances but just didn’t manage to get the ball to hand. They played well. We gave away too many penalties and Lopez kicked well.

“It was a good try to score before half time. If we’d have come back out and backed it up we could have won the game but we made too many mistakes and gave too many penalties away.”

France coach Philippe Saint-Andre was full of praise for Russell calling him a "very good player" but he was not as impressed with his own team's performance, particularly after Johnnie Beattie was sin-binned just after the hour.

"We won so we need to accept that but Scotland played very well," he said. "We were not clinical enough, not enough patience close to the line, we were 15 against 14 and we didn't score any points.

“It’s a win but we should do better than what we did tonight.”

He added: “Because the game was so close the guys were a little bit tense but fair play to Scotland, they defend very well, they play with a lot of spirit and this shows they are a good team.”

Next up for France is a trip to Dublin and Saint-Andre has demanded improvements from his squad.

"Ireland are favourites so we just need to improve with our performance from tonight."