It is a heist at the Louvre that has captured the imagination of the Paris public of late but for French rugby fans, this weekend will bring back the uncomfortable memories of a perceived robbery of a different kind. It is two years and three weeks, or thereabouts, since the Springboks stormed the Stade de France on a night of rugby nirvana that ended with a host nation in mourning and South Africa marching towards consecutive tournament crowns.
“For us, the French people, it’s really stuck with us,” France scrum half Maxime Lucu admitted this week. “It was our World Cup and they came and took it off us.” Other squad members have dismissed any sense of a narrative built around revenge or redemption but a return to the scene of the crime will no doubt stir certain feelings. Closing Rugby World Cup quarter-final weekend that may still be the high watermark of the international game, just a single point separated France and the Springboks come the close of a colossal contest of ferocious, fearsome intensity as South Africa mastered the margins again, from Eben Etzebeth goalline knockdown to Cheslin Kolbe’s blocking of Thomas Ramos’s conversion.
