Martin Johnson played down his team selection decisions after England's improved attacking display in the 12-10 defeat to France.
The England coach dropped Jonny Wilkinson to the bench ahead of the Six Nations finale at the Stade de France in Paris on Saturday with Toby Flood starting at fly-half in his place.
Ben Foden was handed his first start at full-back and wing Chris Ashton made his Test debut in the match.
The changes looked like they would pay dividends when Foden put the visitors ahead in the sixth minute when he finished off a good move in the left corner from Ashton's smart pass.
However a Francois Trinh-Duc drop-goal and three Morgan Parra penalties gave France a 12-7 half time lead.
Wilkinson came off the bench to convert a penalty as England dominated the second half but they could not claw back the deficit and France held on for their ninth Grand Slam success.
The talk afterwards was of a much-improved England display, but Johnson was quick to play down the part he played in proceedings.
"It wasn't a team transformed," he said. "We said all the way through that if we got our execution right, those chances have been there all tournament. When you don't take them and talk about it and lose, it's not good.
"
A couple of times this year we haven't backed our hands under pressure and didn't score.
"I thought the coaches did a great job of calling the game. We knew if we got outside [Mathieu] Bastareaud we could get around him. That was there early on when we scored the try.
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Ben Foden played fantastically well and Chris Ashton did well as well.
We made our calls - we put Jonny on the bench for exactly that, to bring him on to kick that penalty and hopefully win a game that could potentially be won by a drop-goal or a late penalty.
"They were getting very nervous and at 12-10 it looked like we might be able to win it like that. Tactically in the second half we were far better and played the majority of the game in their half."