Scotland captain Stuart Hogg labelled his wayward kick to touch in the last minute of the 22-15 defeat by France as a “schoolboy error” but praised the team’s efforts.
Hogg kicked the ball dead to scupper Scotland’s chances of a draw in the Autumn Nations Cup Pool B match at Murrayfield.
The loss means France will advance to the final if they beat Italy on Saturday.
“I made a schoolboy error,” Hogg said.
“It’s as simple as that but look, I thought we played well for 78 minutes of that game.
“A couple of mistakes didn’t quite go our way and we’re old enough and ugly enough now to realise we’ve made a mistake. I don’t need to be told a million times about it.
“The positive thing is we realise where we’ve made mistakes. We can go back to the drawing board and try to make amends.”
Scotland will be awarded a bonus-point win after this week’s game with Fiji was called off because of a Covid-19 outbreak in the tourists’ squad.
Unless Italy pull off a shock result in Paris, Gregor Townsend’s side will play the second-place team in Pool B on 5 December in the tournament’s third place play-off.
“It’s a way to finish off the campaign on a high,” said Townsend.
“Ideally our best performance of the year, best performance of the campaign, because a lot of effort’s gone into the last six, seven weeks.
“A win would be great, that’ll be an away game. We’ll be playing teams that we’re going to meet in a few months’ time [in the Six Nations].”
