Oita (Japan) (AFP)

Forced disappointment after the raucous defeat of Wales (20-19) in the quarterfinals of the World Cup, the players of the XV of France leave Japan "head up" and make an appointment in 2023 for the World Cup home.

"The end is tragic but we have our heads up anyway." Yoann Huget and the other players do not seem down for a team that just saw a semifinal world escape him by one point, so she led the score almost the whole game.

If the French are not six feet underground, it's because they made the winner of the last Six Nations Tournament shake, in which they had shown a disturbing face.

"It's hard to lose like that, but we have proved that we could be at the rendezvous on the important matches," said right-wing pillar Rabah Slimani, "proud of this team that has not let anything go until end".

"Everybody saw us + loaded + (corrected, Ed), we saw two quarter-finals at 40 points on Saturday (Ireland and Australia outclassed by New Zealand and England), and I think that's motivated us to show that the French had to be proud, "Huget said. "I think we showed a good image of the France team and that's the most important."

Above all, young people have taken the date: 2023, year of the next World Cup organized by France is in everyone's heads and Antoine Dupont (22 years old), Romain Ntamack (20), Damian Penaud (22) and Camille Chat (23) answered present in Japan. "We are a young generation with a lot of players who have a lot of potential," says Penaud. "It's up to us to create our own story afterwards, and I'm sure we'll be able to do great things."

- Young people between tears and ambitions -

Welded by a long preparation, the future leaders of the group France have "learned a lot from the old", according to Ntamack who retains as its partners "the state of mind" and "the atmosphere" of the Japanese adventure.

The dean (33 years old) Louis Picamoles, whose international career stops on this umpteenth heartbreak, agrees. The World Cup of the Blues "can not be positive because we should have gone today, afterwards, I think it will serve ... Many players have learned about this competition."

Jefferson Poirot regrets that the French could not offer a better start to Picamoles and captain Guilhem Guirado, also 33 years old. "The whole group wanted to give two more games to the players who are stopping, that's the first thing that comes to my mind, these guys took shots for four years, we can not give them this gift ", regrets the left pillar. "There was a lot of emotion, tears, especially the youngest ones." Who must now prepare a gift a posteriori.

© 2019 AFP