“La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid” or, for those of us who scraped through GCE French, “revenge is a dish best served cold”,

One of the first recorded instances of the saying in print was in the 1845 French novel Mathilde by Eugène Sue, which suggested the phrase was already in common usage at the time.

Three years ago, on this very soil in the Northern outskirts of Paris, the Springboks broke French hearts. They trampled all over their Rugby World Cup dreams and left a long-lasting and deep hurt in the soul of Les Bleus.

Saturday night was the first meeting between the two teams since that October night in 2023 when an epic World Cup quarter-final ended with a South African victory by a single point (29-28).

Time heals old wounds, but there was still plenty of rugby scar tissue remaining to remind the boys in blue of that epic balmy autumn night 756 days ago.

There were six French survivors in the starting line up from that game and there would have been many more but for France’s extensive injury list which includes Peato Mauvaka, Uini Atonio, Tevita Tatafu, Paul Mallez, Matthias Halagahu, Joshua Brennan, François Cros, Antoine Dupont, Baptiste Couilloud, Louis Le Brun, Jonathan Danty, Yoram Moefana, Théo Attissogbe, Gabin Villière, Romain Buros plus Pierre-Louis Barassi, Matthis Lebel, Matthieu Jalibert, Romain Taofifenua and the recently returned Baptiste Serin.

In a match that should have been measured on the Richter scale the hits were immense and the physicality in all quarters was simply breathtaking from start to finish.

Damian Penaud’s first half brace of tries, the first after just four minutes, gave France a narrow 14-13 half time lead with the Boks further punished by Lood De Jäger’s 39th minute permanent red card.

France started the second half where they left off. A penalty from Ramos extended the home side’s lead to 17-13 but their their dominance of territory and possession were not converted into any further points.

The 14 man Springbok team that appeared to be on the rack produced a defensive masterclass and staged a remarkable comeback scoring nineteen points in the last fifteen minutes of the match including three tries to give them a remarkable 32-17 victory.

A night that had started so promisingly for a France ended with an almost silent Stade de France crowd slinking off into the darkness of a late dark Parisian night engulfed in a feeling of Deja vu.

Revenge a dish best served cold was not on the menu tonight.