The less we are talking about Finn Russell at the end of games, the better. This may sound massively counterintuitive, given that he’s one of the world’s best players and can change the entire course of a match with one deft intervention.
My point is not that Scotland don’t still want or need Russell doing his thing, but that it’s a sign of many other things running smoothly when they are not reliant on their star fly half pulling rabbits from hats.
Saturday’s win over England is a case in point. It was actually one of Russell’s most mature displays for his country, through the exceptional way in which he managed the game by making good decisions and kicking fantastically well from both hand and tee.
He also supplied a crucial assist for Duhan van der Merwe’s third try, with that delightful cross-kick off the outside of his boot. But the crucial difference was that this brilliant invention and equally sharp execution were the icing on the cake, rather than the whole cake they might have been in previous years.
There are now so many other successful parts to this slick Scotland machine, most obviously in attack. You really don’t need to be forcing things when you have a man like Van der Merwe willing, ready and able to score the sort of try that few wings on the planet could even countenance never mind pull off, and you have a pair of centres with the ability Sione Tuipulotu and Huw Jones routinely show to team up and pick holes.
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Van der Merwe elevates that attack to an entirely different level. I spoke last week about the moments of individual brilliance which have separated Scotland and England in recent Calcutta Cup fixtures, and here was yet another instance of the monopoly the Scots hold on match-winners.
We saw it last year against France in Paris when they came back and almost won, then again against Les Bleus in the World Cup warm-ups in Saint-Etienne. Scotland are always in the game, even if they are 10 to 15 points down. We saw that again at the weekend: even though things weren’t going well, there was absolutely no sense of panic or people rushing things.
Part of that is down to the fact that they know it just takes one moment. Whether it’s Van der Merwe, Russell, Tuipulotu, Jones, Blair Kinghorn, Darcy Graham, whoever, Scotland now have a host of big-game players where, if you give them a single sniff, they’ll take it.
Against England, I was really impressed with the ability they showed to fix problems on the run, something which hasn’t always been this team’s strongest trait. All the chat in the week had been that they were ultra-prepared for the blitz defence, but training against a blitz defence is one thing, the cold, hard physical reality of it quite another.
The blitz spooked them early on and they over-complicated things. They tried to be a little bit cute with a number of lineout plays they hoped would negate the blitz, but in the second half, they switched to Tuipulotu carrying hard. George Turner wasn’t leaving the ball in the air for a long time when carrying at the line, a tactic well suited to a defence which thrives the longer the ball is in the air. This change of approach completely shut down the blitz. Scotland were really accurate in implementing what they had clearly spoken about at half-time.
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I was worried when Tuipulotu was forced off by a knee injury, as he has become central to what Scotland do on both sides of the ball. But Cameron Redpath carries really well, he distributes so smoothly and obviously dovetails so well with Russell at Bath, so he’s a pretty handy replacement. He looks fit and motivated and there should be absolutely no concern about him starting in Rome on March 9.
But for that TMO debacle against the French, Scotland would be heading there with three wins from three, but in another sense they are exactly where we wanted them to be heading into the final two rounds: they have something substantial to play for, be it a triple crown or, if results elsewhere fall their way, potentially a championship too.
If Scotland do win in Dublin, of course they will be frustrated to miss out on a grand slam (assuming they have beaten Italy) and maybe even a title, but I can’t think of a time when they would have defeated a more highly regarded team. If they finish up with four wins, one of them away from home against a once-in-a-generation Ireland side, they will have performed remarkably well regardless of where it leaves them in the final table.
To tee up that big final day, Scotland must do a professional job at the Stadio Olimpico. I expect them to win and win comfortably, because even though Italy came within the width of a post of winning on French soil for the first time in the Six Nations, they were really poor in that game. It just so happened that France were terrible as well. The caveat is that in the final 10 minutes when Italy finally showed some accuracy, they gave us an indication of the threat they can pose.
Their defence has improved — France had ten red-zone entries and only managed one try so they’re putting a bit of pressure on the ball and they look physical. There is a bit more variety coming through in the way they’re playing too. They cost themselves so many points in previous years just by being over-enthusiastic to play and run and offload every single time.
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Mentally, Italy will be in a similar place to where Scotland were after they played France. There’s a bit of synergy there, even though Scotland lost and Italy still came away with something in the shape of a draw.
The question was how would Scotland respond, and the answer was a comfortable win over England. I’d call what we saw from Russell a really selfless performance, and we should not underestimate just how impressive he has been from the tee — with Bath, he has not been kicking often or, by his own admission, that well, but so far in the championship he has been the definition of deadly.
Gregor Townsend is unhappy at not being able to access Russell, Redpath and the rest of the Gallagher Premiership contingent in this fallow week, even though the English clubs don’t have any games and some of them aren’t even training.
Having played club rugby in Wales myself, all sides know what they’re getting into with that kind of arrangement. It does seem a bit puerile that the English clubs would rather these players did nothing than going to train, but I suppose there is the risk of injury in training.
Leaving Scotland has been great for the likes of Russell, Kinghorn and Ben White, but this is the flipside. You can see from Gregor’s point of view that it seems like a lack of common sense, but the reality is that England pay fees to the Premiership clubs for this kind of access, so unless we can replicate that arrangement, nothing is going to change.
Scotland plan trip to Canada
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Scotland are to face Canada in Ottawa in the first match of their summer tour (Mark Palmer writes).
The game has been confirmed for July 6, with Gregor Townsend’s side expected to then play the United States in Washington DC on July 12.
It is understood that Scotland will subsequently travel to South America for two further fixtures, possibly against Chile and Uruguay.
The Canada fixture is the only one confirmed and will mean the Scots go back up against a team whom they last faced in Edmonton in June 2018. A hat-trick of tries from George Turner, plus scores from Byron McGuigan, Ruaridh Jackson, Magnus Bradbury and Lewis Carmichael secured a 48-10 win.
Scotland lost 30-29 to the United States in Houston the following week.
