Huget: My sloppiness killed the mood in Six Nations

YOANN Huget admits the pain of his Six Nations horror show against Wales still hurts as he plans to make amends today.

In February France threw away a 16-0 half-time lead to lose in Paris with Huget badly at fault for the visitors’ second try which came from George North.

Chasing back to cover Hadleigh Parkes’ kick, Huget had plenty of time to clear the danger, but slipped in the wet rain and allowed North to score. His France team then imploded spectacularly.

The sides meet again in Oita this morning and Huget, right, said: “My worst memory of facing Wales was last year. I let doubt creep into the team thanks to my sloppiness.

“We were in front, but my mistake killed the mood. I’m annoyed by that match because we could have won quite simply.

“We’ve known Wales’ game for eight years. They have this ability to put their opponents under pressure and to wait for their opponent to make a mistake so they can score.

“We’re ready for everything. It’s difficult to know what the key is to countering Wales’ kicking game. It functions very well and they’ve mastered it brilliantly. We know they tend to use their kicking game to unsettle the back three as we saw against Australia and Fiji. They’re masters of that. “It’s up to us to be on our game as much as possible to protect ourselves from a kick which could give us problems.”

France have struggled to impress at the World Cup so far. They laboured to wins over Argentina, USA and Tonga and had their final Pool clash with England called off due to typhoon Hagibis.

“The wait for this game has been building up little by little,” Huget says.

“We’ve trained hard and now we need to release the pressure and go out on the pitch and let loose. We’ve suffered in the past against Wales and now we have to produce the goods.”