At first appearances, Saturday was just another crushing, frustrating Paris disappointment to go with all the others since Scotland last won in the Stade de France in 1999.
They’ve had some howkings down that stretch, but there’s also been a couple where they got close. A 15-8 scoreline is not that remarkable, other than France had never previously been shut out of the try-line in Paris by Scotland in the Six Nations.
It was the same margin as two years ago, when it was 23-16, and not as close as 2005 the Matt Williams era when it was 16-9.
Yet it felt different, very different in fact. There’s that same feeling of disappointment, but a whole lot more hope.
The first half specifically the last twenty minutes of it were almost a revelation, even if we actually knew this young Scottish team had it in them to threaten with running rugby. And France were definitely worried.
In the wake of Dougie Fife’s try on the stroke of half-time, and the agony of seeing Greig Laidlaw’s conversion come back off the post when a favourable glancing blow would have had the Scots 10-9 to the good for the oranges, the Stade de France crowd a lot less fervent than had been predicted basically sat on their hands for half an hour.
Even the famous Dax band, stationed behind the posts Le Quinze were attacking and manfully keeping the spirits and the ambience up, struggled to get the sing-songs going.
The only scores of the second half largely due to some scrambling and often heroic defence by Scotland and a couple of wicked bounces favouring France were gifts to the home side.
Fife, having scored his debut international try, gave three points back by first misjudging a touchline kick that was going out on the full and then chucking the ball away in frustration at his error, compounding his mistake and inviting Nigel Owens to award a penalty which Camille Lopez kicked to give France breathing space.
The second penalty, which finally got the crowd to open their lungs and sing with the band knowing the game was safe, was a gift from Owens, or so the Scots will fervently believe. Chasing the try to get the win, they were snared in midfield and pinged for holding on but the Scots were livid the Welsh referee didn’t give the award the other way for a Frenchman not rolling away.
Still, Owens is the best ref in the business and that was one of the few decisions you could argue with. The official penalty count against Scotland was 12 to 8, although it felt more severe than that, and if one has to be critical of this team and their coaches it is that discipline Scotland have been the most penalised team in the 6 Nations the last two years is still a problem.
But let’s shine a light on what was good actually, great. Stuart Hogg was magnificent throughout, while Finn Russell, Mark Bennett and Alex Dunbar were a wonderfully creative midfield. Blair Cowan scrapped and stole ball, the French never got their hoped-for ascendancy in the scrum.
Jonny Gray made 19 tackles. Of those six, three were making their 6 Nations debuts.
And this is just the start for this team; as Vern Cotter hinted afterwards, they don’t even know yet how good they could be.
“There were a couple of little errors from pressure,” he said in the depths of the Stade later. “The guys are probably already looking at video and talking amongst themselves about how to deal with those lost balls.
“But they were having a go. They grabbed the ball and ran with it. One of the things was we found ourselves in situations over the advantage line and they need to keep believing and not be surprised if things unfold in front of them favourably, and go through and finish.
“We surprise ourselves by getting into situations, and then put ourselves under pressure by not keeping to certain things that we probably haven’t practised enough.”
France still won, of course, even if their press and fans deluged them with criticism; “awkward and without ideas”, “sophorific” and pinpointing one moment, when Tim Visser nearly intercepted with the score at 12-8, as the only difference between the hollow victory and an ignominious loss.
They did it with power in the second half, helped by those gifts and the other penalties. France’s huge first choice front five not being judged good enough, they simply brought on an even bigger one and strangled the life out of Scotland with driving mauls.
Scotland don’t really have anyone bigger to make up the ballast deficit maybe Adam Ashe or David Denton at 8, but that’s about it so they need to use their strengths, and it’s fairly clear what those are now.
Give it to the runners and stop giving away so many penalties. That’s the next step, and it might be to a winning team.