The outcome was a blow to the optimism generated by an encouraging November Test series, which included a historic backs-to-the-wall victory against Australia.

Three of Robinson’s four games at the helm have seen Scotland struggle to impose themselves on their opponents but he maintains they have the ability to do so and have just not been delivering.

“People are right to expect results,” he said.

“We are in control of what we do but we played against a very good French side at the weekend.

“We’re not going to beat anybody if we concede that amount of possession inside our half.

“You look at the Australia game and we did a similar thing to what we did against France, conceding the same amount of possession.

“But we were able to withstand the onslaught that they had.”

Robinson is demanding a big improvement in both attack and defence when Scotland travel to Wales on Saturday.

He said: “There’s a lot of frustration and disappointment around through the performance but that’s happened now and we’ve got to focus on how we beat Wales.”

In order to achieve that, Robinson made three changes to his side, ending Dan Parks’ 14-month exile in order to play a more territorial game after France dominated in that department on Sunday.

He said: “We needed to improve our owning of territory, winning the territorial battle.

“We didn’t do that well enough last week and, while we showed some really good attacking intent, we turned too many balls over.

“Dan’s coming in not just to kick the ball – we still want to move it, we still want to play with the ball in hand.”

Robinson also admitted Sean Lamont – Scotland’s best player on Sunday – had been switched from wing to beef up the centre.

“Sean’s played at centre for Llanelli, so he’s had the ability to play there,” Robinson said.

“He’s very physical; we think there’s going to be a big physical battle in the centres.

“But also in the way that Wales defend, they really do rush up hard.”

Robinson said of the recall of Euan Murray, who missed the France game for religious reasons: “He’s a fantastic tighthead prop, he’s a real rock in the way that he performs and we need that level of physicality in the game.”

The former Edinburgh head coach paid tribute to Chris Paterson, who earns his 100th cap this weekend.

“I’ve really enjoyed working with Chris over the last couple of years,” he said.

“He’s a great professional both on the pitch and also off it.

“He thoroughly deserves the honour and the tributes bestowed upon him because of the way that he’s performed and performed consistently with a number of different coaches.”

And Robinson insisted the axed Phil Godman and Max Evans still had a chance to impress him from the bench.

“They do and that’ll be important for them to do that,” he said.

“We didn’t want to make too many changes but it’s about making the right changes.”