Italy 24-29 France: Defending Six Nations champions survive a major scare in Rome as Matthieu Jalibert comes off the bench to score crucial late try

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Shaun Edwards, France's English defence coach, admitted they were 'hanging on' after escaping with a narrow win over Italy.

The Six Nations holders were 24-22 down going into the last 15 minutes, before substitute fly-half Matthieu Jalibert scored the decisive try to make it 14 Test victories in a row for Fabien Galthie's men.

Edwards, whose men now face Ireland on Saturday, said: 'We certainly got a serious challenge.

'I've just spoken to their coach and said you should be proud of your lads. They were absolutely outstanding.

'The fitness levels, they came on strong in the second half and, let's be honest, we were hanging on at the end.

Mattheiu Jalibert scored a late try to earn defending champions France win over Italy in the Six Nations

Ethan Dumortier (left) went over on debut to help his side squeeze an opening day victory

Ange Capuozzo scored for Italy to give his side hope against a strong France outfit

'But we're in a good habit at the moment of winning tight, close games, going up against Australia and South Africa. It's happened a few times, so hopefully we will continue that habit.'

Italy have only won one Six Nations match since 2015 — in Wales last year — and asked if they had missed a golden opportunity, fly-half Tommaso Allan said: 'Yeah, 100 per cent, it was quite tough to swallow, this defeat. We had our chances.

'In the first half there were a bit too many errors, we gave away 19 points from our mistakes.

'We've just got to find our balance, have that execution and be more diligent.

'We gave away too many balls to the French and they're a class side who are going to score tries off our mistakes. But there's a lot of positives to take from this.

'We'll look at it — we are very confident for next week's game.'

That game is at Twickenham on Sunday against an England side who now realise it will be no cakewalk, as they try to get their campaign back on track after losing to Scotland on Saturday.

Tommaso Allan converted four penalties for the hosts in Rome bit it wasn't enough for victory