Scotland and France take in tournament education
Monday, December 2, 2013
Article summary
Scotland coach Pauline Hamill reflected fondly on a "brilliant education" after her side bowed out after a 1-0 loss to France, with Guy Ferrier pleased to have ended on a winning note.
Article top media content
Article body
Pauline Hamill, Scotland coach
We earned the right to be here and have competed really well with the best three teams in Europe. We've proved our quality in every game and that's something to take forward, that we can compete at this level and do very, very well. We've had a lot of compliments along the way and that's credit to the players because they've done absolutely brilliantly. This experience will inspire the players to train more and become even better.
It's always important to develop against different styles and we've achieved that as well. It's been such a brilliant education for everybody – for the players and staff – and we've loved every minute. Our ultimate goal is to develop players to play for the women's national team. St George's Park is conducive to 11 elite athletes to be in an environment that's really, really positive, and we've been afforded that opportunity.
Guy Ferrier, France coach
We got back to what we're good at and held our own. We rediscovered our desire and it gives us great pleasure to taste victory again. It was a good game against good opponents. We've learned a lot from this tournament; not least that you can't afford to be at anything but your best. We arrived with lots of injuries and six or so players coming back from injury.
Perhaps if we had managed to draw against Spain we could have gone on but we had too many setbacks. With such a depleted squad, it was impossible for these girls to compete. We also made too many individual errors, which you can't afford to do if you have any ambitions of going through.