France captain Raphael Ibanez emerged after three days of soul-searching yesterday to express confidence in the hosts' ability to rebound from Friday's 17-12 defeat by Argentina.
"The blow knocked all of us out," he told a news conference at the team's training camp. "There was, however, no question of staying in our bedrooms. Some people say it's not a good thing to analyse an event in the midst of it all so I decided to sidestep this theory.
"We had a players' meeting during the night after the game. Then I went to see the coaches and we had a lot more meetings among the players."
France now have to win their last three games and collect all the bonus points available against Ireland, Namibia and Georgia to avoid an early exit or a quarter-final against the All Blacks in Cardiff.
The French captain, who played his 93rd test on Friday to become the most capped hooker in rugby history, refused to go into the details of the three days of brainstorming.
"We blew it all down the line and we know it. That's enough to say. We are all responsible, including myself, because I didn't anticipate what happened, and including the coach," he said.
"Bernard Laporte is as hurt as we are. He also spent the weekend trying to answer the questions we cannot escape. We need his leadership."
Ibanez said he had the feeling the best solution was "to keep it simple".
"Our squad is still a quality squad. I wanted to find out if the commitment of the players and coaches was still there. I had the answers and I'm sure we will bounce back," he added.
"I'm not worrying too much about the next game. We know what we have to do, we have three games to play, we are not any more in a position to calculate. We have to free ourselves and rediscover the pleasure of being on the pitch."
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