Start pleases Saint-Andre

France scored four tries and deserved the victory but lacked as much fluency as Saint-Andre might have desired.

However, the new boss said: "It's a first victory. You have to have a smile.

"As a coach, you seek perfection but today you saw a great defence, a good discipline and we even scored four tries."

But Saint-Andre admitted there were also downsides to his team's performance.

"The glass is half full and half-empty," the 44-year-old former France winger said. "Up front we could have performed better. We lacked aggressiveness at the start of match in clearing out and as for taking the game to them, we did some things of quality but we were often guilty of failing to finish them off well.

"We won two scrums against the head, including one that led to Malzieu's try, so we can't say the scrum was irregular as such. On our lineout, however, we lost a lot of ball."

Saint-Andre acknowledged that patience was key to the game, given that Italy had held out in the World Cup against Ireland and Australia for the opening hour of each match.

"We analysed the World Cup matches and up to the 60th minutes it was always 9-6, 6-6, and it was really in the final 20 minutes that you saw the difference so we had to be patient," he said.

"We saw in their game a tactic to go for territory but today they were much more ambitious in their gameplan and keeping the ball.

"Italy employed a strategy that saw them keep the ball. They didn't give it up easily."

Saint-Andre also criticised replacement scrum-half Morgan Parra, who booted the ball into touch to bring the game to a premature end when France could have attacked in pursuit of a fifth try.

"I wasn't happy about the last action," he said. "We saw a situation where we kicked the ball into touch.

"You must play the ball, enjoy it. The match was won, sure, but you mustn't kick the ball into touch. The pleasure of playing must carry on until the final second."