'Good fun': Finn Russell reflects on first-ever captaincy stint, Scotland comeback and kicking tactics
The 30-year-old revealed that he had never been skipper at any level of rugby prior to the Summer Series match in Edinburgh. “A lot of confidence from Gregor giving me the captaincy today,” laughed Russell. “I enjoyed it. It was good fun. As a ten on the pitch you tend to talk a lot and chatting with other leaders. In terms of speaking on the pitch and having leadership it was similar to previous occasions. It was more the relationships with the referee, and having those key decisions at certain times. Do we go for the posts, or the corner? That was the main difference.”
Russell was able to cut a relaxed figure but he, and his team-mates, were not in such a good place at half time of this quite crazy match. France stormed into a 21-3 lead, playing some fine rugby, while Scotland struggled to get a foothold. But while the French XV was far from at full-strength, Scotland had their big guns out and recovered. Scoring 22 unanswered points with 14 men following Zander Fagerson’s red card has given the Scottish camp a shot in the arm, revealed Russell.
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Hide Ad"It was really good,” Russell said of Scotland’s second-half display. “It showed the rugby we can play. We took our chances in the second half. We maybe left one or two chances out there. From last week it was a step forward and we go to France next week. It will be a very different french team we face but it will be a very good challenge for us heading towards the World Cup.”
Russell had to rally the troops at the break, but insisted that coming back from deficits does not faze him or the players. “We have been in that situation before,” the stand-off said. “In the dressing room at half-time we did address the fact that the first half was not good enough. We turned over ball, we were not accurate, we gave penalties away and the French took their chances. We did a few good things but did not manage to capitalise off the back of that. In the second half we took them on. Our skills and execution was a lot better and we took our chances. Darcy’s try early in the second half really got momentum back in our camp and we built from there.”
Russell, so often looking for the tryline rather than the posts, kicked a very early penalty when in previous matches, he would have gone for touch. It led to the inevitable question about whether responsibility had matured his rugby brain and made him more sensible. It transpires that the gameplan all along was to try and take any low-hanging fruit when given the opportunity.
“I said to Gregor before the game, ‘are we going to go for touch a lot, go for the posts?” explained Russell. “We said if we got an easier kick we would go for the posts. If it was outside the 15 we would go to touch but that one was early on in the game and getting on the scoreboard was a confidence boost for us to get into the game. For the first 12 minutes we played well and got three points ahead but the French got the momentum from there in that first half.”
Scotland now head across the Channel for a re-match against France in Saint-Etienne next Saturday. Russell expects their big guns to be brought back in at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard. “It was not their strongest team,” added Russell. “A lot of their players will come back next week. It will be a different team we face. This week it was tough to prepare as a lot of the boys have not played before, especially against us in the Six Nations. We focused on ourselves this week. Next week against them we can look at their players that come back and look back to the game from the Six Nations and analyse how they play and we will go from there. Next week will be a very different French team we face.”