France center Nathalie Lesdema described her team's defending against Lithuania as "catastrophic" as Les Bleues slumped to their first defeat in five Euro 2005 qualifiers in Vilnius.

Qualification to next year's tournament in Turkey seemed assured only two days ago but was put in doubt on Wednesday night as Alain Jardel's troops went down 73-53 to their rivals.

The French trailed 20-16 at the end of the first quarter and never managed to catch up.

		“	We will manage to find the motivation to travel to Italy and win. We have not achieved so much for nothing	„
		Nathalie Lesdema

"Lithuania displayed a good match," Lesdema told L'Equipe.

"They prevented us from developing our game and we also doubted a lot because we failed to score points.

"Our defence was catastrophic, we were not as united as usual.

"When we started to sink everyone focused on the player we marked and we forgot our defence.

"We gave them a lot of space."

France defeated Lithuania 72-60 earlier in the qualifying campaign but were up against a much improved side this time around.

"Our defensive efficiency crushed them in the first match," Lesdema added, "and they probably worked a lot on that.

"Since we lacked productivity last night they took advantage of our weaknesses."

The loss means there is still all to play for in the race for qualification ahead of the final round of matches this weekend.

France face Italy on Saturday in their last match while Lithuania travel to Hungary.

The team finishing second still has a chance of qualifying, with the two best second-placed teams assured of places in Turkey along with all the group winners.

"The defeat to Lithuania is a bad blow," Lesdema conceded, "because we wanted to secure qualification now.

"Now we must win in Italy to be sure we will take part in Euro 2005.

"We did not deserve to lose by 20 points. This is disappointing but our frustration will not last long.

"We will manage to find the motivation to travel to Italy and win. We have not achieved so much for nothing."