England's Jamie George reflects on heartbreaking Six Nations loss to France

That result means France have been crowned champions for the second successive year while England finished in fifth position to complete their worst ever finish in the tournament.

It was Steve Borthwick‘s troops' fourth loss in five Six Nations Tests with their only positive result registered in their tournament opener against Wales at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham last month.

It was a crazy game against Les Bleus. George hadn't been involved in too many like it. The loss sat differently than the others, though.

"We are gutted. We are heartbroken at that, if I'm honest, because we brought everything into that performance. It took a huge amount of emotion and fight and character to lose like that in that manner. It's very, very frustrating," he said after the game.

"I think we can be very proud of what we put out on the field today. A lot has been questioned with regards to the character of the team, the performances, and I think some of it is completely fair.

"But that is the sort of team that we are, that sort of team that we have been for over 12 months. We let ourselves down in a couple of pictures, but that, for me, shows that there's, I hope, that it showed the England fans and you guys that there's still a huge amount of talent left in this team.

"There aren't many teams that come to the Stade de France and scrum, France like we did. Not many teams maul France like we did. So, when you got the foundations like that, and presumably you're talking about the attacking side of the game, we owned our chances through being physical in the middle territory.

"I thought Finn Smith and Ben Spencer were fantastic in the way that they managed the game. Elliot (Daly) putting little kicks in behind allowed us to play rugby up in their end. It felt like every time that we had the ball, (it) felt like we could score."

But the points came back quickly into conversation.

"Obviously, look, we conceded however many points, 40-plus points like that. That needs fixing, that needs (us) to make sure that we're better at. But you've got to give a lot of credit to France and (Louis) Bielle-Biarrey, quite handy player in transition, for sure."

What gnawed at him was the contrast. The same team that couldn't show up for Scotland or Ireland had just proven it could play at this level.

"If you had the magic answer to, like, providing performance like that every week, then I actually think like that looked like the team that we have been for a long period of time, like over a year now," said George.

"That performance, that sort of character, the movement of the ball, things that we were being complimented for a lot, that we were able to put that on the field.

"So yes, it makes it more frustrating that we weren't able to do that in Scotland, (and the) Ireland game in particular. But you know, I think it's brilliant for us to be able to, we are gutted with that result, and the result tonight, and the results that we had in the Six Nations as a whole.

"But I think tonight has shown us, and hopefully shown everyone else that we can, when we play like that, we'll be right up there in 16 months time."

The inconsistency pointed to specific failures. First, discipline.

"Everything's relatively circumstantial, so you take each game in isolation. Our discipline and keeping 50 men on the field is absolutely vital.

"I think that has been so below par, and something that we have been very frustrated with, we take individual responsibility with, and it hurts again today. So that needs to be better, obviously."

Second was the pattern of starts. When you chase the game early, everything changes.

"I think if you take Scotland and Ireland again, they're very different games, but the start of the game, when you then chase a game by 17 to 20-plus points.

"Like, it becomes really difficult against good teams. You have to change tactically on the field. And then you're not actually able to put out on the field what you were hoping for.

"So, that plays into it a little bit. So, if we could get in the time machine and go back, we would start a lot better, a lot more difficult to beat."

France had converted their chances. England hadn't, not until this Test.

"We created a huge amount of opportunities. We're getting a lot of 22 entries. But what today felt like was that whenever we got down there, we're going to come away with points in some capacity. And you know, we haven't done that over the last few weeks."

The one victory in five Tests remained indefensible.

"One in five is not good enough. Like that is not good enough for an England team. We've got huge amount of talent," said George.

"The players need to take responsibility for that. What we put out on the field in a couple of games in particular wasn't good enough.

"Look (at) tonight. We threw everything at it and it's very good France team. On another day, we might have won that game. And the same in Italy, I actually thought that a lot of what we did in Italy was pretty good and much more like this. But again, we didn't get results as a result-based business, and we are very, very frustrated with that."

The Red Rose's discipline let them down at crucial times and the yellow cards they received during the Six Nations were a separate conversation. Each one different.

"You have to look at each one in isolation," explained George. "Honestly, like Henry Arundel's yellow card, two of his yellow cards against Scotland are very different to Ellis Genge's one today. So, like Ellis' one today was probably pretty technical and, in my opinion, quite harsh.

"But, you know, Henry's probably weren't harsh, so really hard to pick out, an overall theme as to why, about what? Why we're giving away yellow cards.

"Hopefully we'll be able to realise how important it is that and it is individual responsibility. It is like Steve is stressing that we need to keep 15 men on the field.

"So then it is individual responsibility to make sure that we adhere to that."

The last game against France had been fractured by a refereeing sequence that haunts him.

"So, the boys on the field were playing as if it was a penalty advantage," added George. "The TMO then intervened to say that it was just a knock on we weren't (aware).

"We were then told that that was the case. So we thought it would come back for a scrum penalty. We play multi-phase on the halfway line, which is not what we would have done.

"Then we got turned over. Everyone's expecting him to come back for the penalty. They kicked the ball up the field, and Louis Bielle-Biarrey scores. So that's, that's a huge swing in the game. And I thought that was important."