FINN RUSSELL insists Scotland will approach the Six Nations full of confidence as they bid to get off to a flier against England.
But the stand-off is adamant Gregor Townsend’s side have to make sure they peak in every game - and not just against the Auld Enemy.
The Scots made history last year when they won at Twickenham for the first time in 38 years.
After a decade of failing to beat the English, Scotland have now only lost one of their last four meetings.
But, with an on-form England beating Tonga, Australia and world champions South Africa in the autumn, Russell is fully aware of the challenge that awaits when the tournament kicks off against their bitter rivals on February 5.
He said: “We know how good a team they are. They had a great November Test [series], as did Wales and France and Ireland.
“Every game’s tough and we’ve got to treat them all the same.
“It’s obviously England against Scotland, which is a massive game.
“But we’ll have confidence going into the tournament, and we know what we have to do to try to perform to our best.
“That’s what we’ll be focusing on and we’ll try to take the [rivalry] out of the equation.”
Russell missed the Six Nations in 2020 after a disagreement with Townsend but will again be expected to be a key figure for Scotland after masterminding memorable victories over England and France last year.
A one-point defeat to Wales and a three-point loss to Ireland still made it a frustrating competition for the Scots.
The Racing 92 star told the Scrum V Rugby podcast: “I love it, the hype that’s around the Six Nations and the excitement that comes with it is brilliant.
“They’re high-level matches, high-intensity matches, which is great.
“I love the Six Nations. We’re lucky we’ve got it every year.
“The World Cup is an amazing tournament but having the Six Nations every year is great. Teams can be in and out of form, so each year it can be any team that turns it on.
“Last year, we lost two games by a couple of points in each of them and that’s the fine margins that goes between you winning it and finishing third or fourth.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here