Finn Russell would rather go watch his brother and his mates play for Falkirk than study Rugby Championship games, but there’s still a hard method to his instinctive style.
The Scotland stand-off produced a fine all-round display in Scotland’s narrow loss to Australia at the weekend, showing great awareness of the opposition in creating two tries for Huw Jones and threatening with ball in hand on almost every attacking possession.
But the Glasgow 10 is the antithesis of the rugby geek, not even turning his attention to the opposition until the week of the game. Rather than spend a day in self-analysis after Saturday’s loss, Russell turned off from rugby altogether, as is his habit.
“After a Saturday game I take Sunday off, after a Friday game I take the whole weekend off. I usually get back into things on the Monday,” he said.
“For Argentina this week I’ll probably get their last five games on my laptop and watch them over the next couple of days to see what they’re up to.
“I’m definitely not a rugby geek. If I watch rugby at the weekend after I’ve played, I’ll probably watch my brothers or my mates, just for the enjoyment. I’m don’t watch other teams and analyse them when we’re not playing them.”
But once he’s back from a few days off and on the laptop, things have to get serious.
“You have to know the opposition inside out before you play them, in modern rugby it is so important and every team does it,” he said.
“Although you cannot analyse all they do as there are the odd things that are off the cuff, you know their start up plays, they may know yours.”
Russell’s varying as much as possible Scotland’s attacking ball bore fruit on Saturday, and it wasn’t a style developed just to attack Australia.
“We have forwards and backs who can move the ball,” he said. “There are gameplans that involve getting the ball wide and threatening with all in hand, it wasn’t just Australia-specific.
“We played really well and we lost at the end of the day but there are a lot of positives to be taken from that.
“We have to learn from that as much as possible. Those last ten minutes were a situation that maybe not many of us were in before. It is a tough one to take and we have to learn and build from that.”
For himself, Russell feels he is now up to full speed after a late start to the season due to the fearsome head knock he took in the PRO12 semi-final against Connacht which resulted in a summer off.
“I’ve not had any issues with my head at all, and I got time off over summer to rehab any niggles I had,” he pointed out. “It was frustrating not being able to go to Japan but it wasn’t the worst thing mentally and physically to have some time off after a long couple of years playing.
“So I had an extended pre-season and I was looking forward to getting back. I’m now feeling physically as good as I can be.”
