Finn Russell is the closest thing to a French stand-off that Scotland has produced in years. Lavishly talented, superbly intuitive and capable of the odd hairbrained moment that just makes him more compelling — if Russell wasn’t so damn cheery, you’d double-check his passport.
Last weekend in Rome, he thrived behind a Scottish pack that looked to have drawn on Gallic inspiration of its own; the set-piece absolutely rampant and the back row carrying with a sense of purpose normally only found in folks hoofing water between a well and a fire.
Scotland managed to douse some creeping flames at the Stadio Olimpico, a first RBS Six Nations win in 10 matches allowing them to approach next Sunday’s home date with Les Bleus looking up the table rather than down.
If, overall, it was a box that needed ticking, for Russell, Mark Bennett, Jonny Gray, John Hardie and WP Nel the significance of the experience was less perfunctory. These players now know what it is to taste victory in this tournament; to sense the tide of a game turning against them and find a way back to dry land.
Confidence has never been a problem for Russell, who had a permanent grin on his face long before he had Miss Scotland on his arm. But even he is bound to feel better for having lobbed that monkey into the Tiber. “It was a bit of a reward, almost, after all the hard work we’ve put in,” he says. “We’ve been playing good rugby and just not managed to get the wins.
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“At the weekend, the boys could have gone into their shell when it got tight, but credit to Greig [Laidlaw], he was kicking all the kicks and keeping us three, six, nine points ahead. We almost didn’t need to go into our shells. We didn’t need to play tight rugby and run the clock down. I said to Greig, ‘we’re going to keep playing the same rugby, we’re not going to change just because it’s getting tight’.”
There was a perverse pleasure to be found in the win not being all plain sailing, what with so many similar situations having produced very different outcomes over the past 13 months. Both meetings with the French in that period were matches Scotland could have won, a 15-8 defeat in Paris on Russell’s Six Nations debut last February, and a 19-16 loss just before the World Cup classic examples of the limbo this side has been in: rarely bad enough to merit proper castigation, but not quite good enough to take the leap to the next level.
While Dante wouldn’t be minded to promote them on the back of a win against his compatriots, the result helped reassure the rest of us that our own verdict on their potential hadn’t been unduly positive. To Russell’s mind, the next shift that needs to happen is in how the team views itself.
“Quite a few of us see ourselves as inexperienced and younger players, but we have played quite a few games and we’re not as inexperienced as we were [in] last year’s Six Nations. We’ve got an extra 10 games under our belts, and that’s not including club stuff,” he says in response to a question about the readiness of others to support rather than defer to Laidlaw’s leadership. “There’s quite a few of us in key positions who have to step up and back [him] up. We can’t leave it all to him to control the team himself, but I do think we’re getting better at that.
“In the backs, it’s definitely starting to get more vocal. Everyone’s taking a bit of leadership, a bit of onus, about how we want to play, helping Greig. At the weekend, that showed in some of the tries we scored, some of the play we had.” Russell was right at the heart of the enterprise, playing his natural game and playing it rather well. Backing his instincts has been key to the stand-off’s rise and remains his greatest strength, but it would be wrong to think of him as winging it. The critical self-awareness that underpins the very best is present in him too. He knows that what we saw in Rome was far from the finished article, collectively and individually.
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“Once [Italy] got into their stride it was tough for us to stop. Myself and Greig could have looked to put the pressure back on them through the air or putting long kicks in. In the second half when it wasn’t going for us, we could have maybe done the same. I learned a lot from that game; I can build on that into the next one.”
Scotland’s reluctance to take the aerial route against the Italians was intriguing, considering the inexperience of the home back three, but it can also be read as a determination to stick to their guns. Vern Cotter has them set up to play much more of a boots-on-the-ground kind of game, dragging the opposition into a frenetic, largely unstructured battle, and for all the myth of French flair being precisely that these days, Russell expects next week’s visitors to play off the cuff as well. “The French teams are all individuals. Each player has the X factor, and we know how dangerous they can be,” he says. “It’s about us trying to stop them getting the opportunities they need to create stuff for the other players in their team.
“They are incredibly physical. Their forwards are really good. Their backs, if they sniff an opportunity, they’ll take it. If they see there’s numbers up, they’ll throw it wide. If they’re through the middle, they’ll throw those offloads.
“For us, I’d imagine it will be a quick game, an exciting game. We’ve got to stop them being as expansive and exciting as they can be.”
Aside from the World Cup warm-up thrashing of Italy, Russell hasn’t been on a winning Scotland side at Murrayfield since a home debut against Argentina in November 2014. That wait is nothing in comparison to the decade that has passed since Scotland last won a match against the French, the day a bleach-blond Sean Lamont scored two tries, including one from a rolling maul.
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Russell, who was 13 at the time, cannot recall if he even watched the game. Should he find his groove next Sunday, there is every chance that match could linger in the collective memory for some time to come.
RUSSELL FACTS
23 years of age
18 Scotland caps
33 starts in professional club rugby
1 RBS Six Nations win, last week against Italy
2 RBS Six Nations yellow cards, against Wales last year (which was subsequently upgraded to a red) and eight days ago in Rome. ‘The ref said I was slowing the play down and it was a professional foul.
‘I’m going to give it to the forwards in the neck and ask them why I was there in that position and they weren’t.’
