All of the points from Warren Gatland’s side came in the first half thanks to a try from Liam Williams and three penalties from the accurate boot of Leigh Halfpenny.
France scored through a Gael Fickou effort, Maxime Machenaud’s kicks and a Francois Trinh-Duc drop goal, but it was the home side who came out on top.
Here’s what head coach Gatland had to say after the match…
What did you make of the game?
“It wasn’t pretty, but we spoke beforehand about coming here to do a job.
“The job was to come here and win and finish second with a six-day turnaround.
“Defensively, the boys showed some good character out there.
“They’re a good French team.
“It’s tough to win. Today wasn’t about performance, it was about result for us.”
It’s been a tight Six Nations?
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“It’s been the same for the last few years. It’s brilliant for the competition.
“Congratulations to Ireland on the Grand Slam, they deserve it, but they will know you need a bit of luck. That drop goal against France and the interception with us in the last minute.
“You have to feel sorry for Italy today because they could have easily won.
“You’ve got to be positive about this competition because it’s been a very competitive year.”
What about the performance against France?
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“Today wasn’t brilliant. It wasn’t a great performance.
“There were a lot of turnovers. We’re realistic about where we are at the moment.
“We’ve exposed a lot of players. We feel like we have more depth than we did in 2015.
“In 12 months time, we’ll be in a really good place. What we’ve done is expose a lot of players and the depth we’ve created puts us in a good position.
“We’re pretty comfortable with where we are.”
France were a tough challenge?
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“I think they’re a good French team.
“I think Jacques Brunel has done a good job. Their game will develop over the next couple of years going into the World Cup.
“They were disciplined, very strong defensively and they carried the ball. I told our players that they’ll play a bit like Italy played when Jacques was coaching them, but France have got better players so they’ll be tougher.
“They’re big men that are physical and tough to break down.”
What about Wales’ new style of play?
“From an attacking perspective, if you look at territory and possession, sometimes it hasn’t been as good as we’d have liked.
“We’ve scored some good tries and created some space.I’ve been happy with the scrum an d line-out, particularly defensively at the line-out.
“We haven’t been too stressed by teams trying to drive against us. Sometimes when you’re focusing on certain aspects of your performance, the things that you’ve been good at in the past can take a back seat. You’ve got to get that balance right.
“We’ve been having those discussions since the autumn, identifying how we want to play against certain teams.We just need to be able to mix and match the way we want to play.”
