Finn Russell shows he's ready to sink the All Blacks with latest performance
By Rugby Onslaught

Finn Russell shows he’s ready to sink the All Blacks with latest performance

Ok, had Adam Hastings not picked up an injury against Fiji on Saturday at Murrayfield, Gregor Townsend would have probably continued to ignore Finn Russell.

In fact, Townsend said after the win over Fiji: “If people are not in the squad I don’t phone them up regularly unless there’s something to talk about. But I’d imagine he’d be available.

“He was disappointed not to be in the squad. If we decide to bring another 10, he’ll be one of the ones we’ll be looking at.”

But just a few hours after Hastings hobbled off the field in Edinburgh, Russell did happen to put in a mightily impressive performance in Paris for Racing 92 against Perpignan.

With his side losing at half time against the Top 14 strugglers, Russell was brought on from the bench to change the game, and that he did. Within seconds on being on he created a try for Maxime Baudonne with some world class offloading. He was bagging a try of his own 20 minutes later as Racing raced away with a 44-20 victory to take them to third in the league table. Not bad for 40 minutes of work.

Take a look at his performance:

Lo and behold, Russell was called up to the Scotland camp this week to replace Hastings, and will now prepare for a visit from the All Blacks. Looking ahead to that match Townsend said:  “We can’t give away as many penalties and we’ve got to convert when we have opportunities, which we didn’t do enough against Fiji.

“We won’t get as many opportunities to score tries next week, so we’ve got to make sure we take them.

“The All Blacks have brought a very strong team – we saw the depth they have with the performance of their second team against Ireland A on Friday.

“They know they’ll have a tough tour coming to the northern hemisphere with the travel and the different styles of rugby they’ll face up here.

“They’re still clearly one of the best teams in the world and we’ve never beaten them so it’s going to take our best performance to win next week.”

ADVERTISEMENT