As former American president George W. Bush would doubtless be surprised to discover, the French do have a word for cliché and all that currently surrounds their international rugby team, fits the description perfectly.

The second lowest ranked of the teams involved in the Six Nations Championship could not have offered a more stereotypical demonstration of French unpredictability than when they last played at the Stade de France beginning their campaign against a Wales team ranked third in the world, which they tore to shreds for half the match, then allowed to register the biggest comeback in championship history.

In the wake of that result it emerged that a senior player, not just any player, but the one who threw the intercepted pass that handed the Welsh their winning try, had been given the captaincy, but claimed he did not know that was the case.

Since then has come a heavy beating from England, resulting in disarray as the half-backs who were their senior decision makers, criticised the coaching they were receiving and were duly dropped for this weekend’s match.

All that before this short, sharp tournament has reached its halfway mark and now much of their fate lies in the hands of a teenager and his 22-year-old half-back partner.

Lest too much hope be placed in inexperience having the potential to be costly, it is worth noting that almost half Scotland's squad, 11 of the 23, have not played a Test in Paris previously. Even so, the visitors must, at the very least, ask repeated questions of the combination of stand off Romain Ntamack - son of the magnificent winger Emile whose try consigned Scotland to a World Cup quarter-final meeting with the Jonah Lomu-inspired All Blacks in 1995 - and Antoine Dupont on their first Test outing together.

French-based Scotland captain Greig Laidlaw admitted to the combination being new to him and while rightly wary, he made it clear that the pair face an examination.

“I think the fact they play together for Toulouse will help them. They are dangerous so we'll need to defend very smartly tomorrow,” he said.

“They are two excellent players. They probably played a bit more together when they were younger (but) we want to put massive pressure on them tomorrow and see how they come out the other side of that.

“Sometimes France change things up and they’ve chosen to do that this week. It’s up to us to combat that and try to find an access into the game, whether that be by putting pressure on them or somewhere else in the team.”

Much of the onus for that will fall on the shoulders of the Scotland captain and his own half-back partner who is hoping it will be third time lucky as a starting stand off for his country, sporting catastrophe having befallen Pete Horne on the two previous occasions against Italy in 2015 and Fiji two summers ago. This, though, is no raw teenager, since Horne matches the cap haul of a former Scotland record holder today as he joins the great Dave Rollo as the top of the Howe of Fife club’s role of honour in making his 40th appearance and, for all that his selection brings a change of style from that of the all-action Finn Russell and the captain believes that the understanding he has with his centres, both Glasgow Warriors clubmates, can help him.

“It's important that Sam Johnson and Nick Grigg are outside him,” said Laidlaw.

“We'll have to change our approach from how we play with Finn slightly to suit Pete's strengths. You have to play to your strengths in the team and Pete brings some different attributes to Finn, but he also brings a lot of the same ones Finn provides and we won't be deviating too much from our gameplan and we'll play like we want to play.”

If they do, the long wait will be over, but as several Scotland players and coaches have observed this week, the troubles in the French camp mean they can be expected to come out “all guns blazing.”

Such notions are not without foundation, of course, since there is a reason that clichés exist. The Scots can and should end the 20 year wait for a win in Paris today, but the most dangerous time to meet any French rugby team can be when their camp appears to be in disarray.