France, who won the 2004 6 Nations Grand Slam, had recorded a successful series of eight consecutive victories before their three matches last November.

A 27-14 win over former world champions Australia at the Stade de France added a ninth win to the record before Les Bleus' form and style suddenly collapsed against Argentina and New Zealand in the fortnight that followed.

Weak in defence and the scrum, the French suffered a 24-14 loss to the Pumas before succumbing to the flamboyant attack of the All Blacks, who inflicted a 45-6 hammering.

The French appeared to have reached their limits against a side they will have to beat in the near future if they are to keep alive their hopes of winning the 2007 World Cup.

Back from a holiday break, Pelous, Stade Toulousain's 31-year-old lock who is also the most capped French player after having made 96 appearances, admits that for the first time in ages the return to international action at the end of the month could be tough.

He said: It's been a year and a half since we found ourselves in such a situation, that is to say having suffered two severe defeats including a thrashing.

We are going to see what happens and how we will all cope with this new context. I remain convinced that we must keep looking ahead while trying to forget about it all in the long term.

It's good to remember the defeat (to New Zealand) and remember what went wrong. It's instructive, but in the short term it's better to sweep it away from our memories to evacuate all the frustrations it entailed.

We must work and become again the team who beat Australia at the start of November.

Fed up of being considered as outsiders, France had made consistency their prime objective before the November defeats.

But the losses have prompted a lot of questions within the team with Bernard Laporte raising the issue of whether France would truly be capable of winning the 2007 World Cup.

Pelous added: We've always been the outsiders because we are not the best team in the world. Our good results are timely, we achieve great things from time to time, but there is no regularity.

I don't think that the French have that mentality, and we also play a lot with our respective clubs which is not the case of the southern hemisphere clubs who have more time to dedicate to their national team.

In the Latin spirit also, a one-time achievement is considered better than consistency in efforts and results.

The ideal would be to find the right balance between regularity and achievements. If I could win all my matches by 20 points and with style it would be perfect. Of course this is pure utopia, but we can still try.

Having outclassed all their rivals last year to win their second Grand Slam in three seasons, Les Bleus will start as hot favourites when they take on Scotland in the tournament opener on February 5 at the Stade de France.