FINN Russell has revealed that he had had only minimal contact with Gregor Townsend since the summer before the Scotland coach got in touch this week to recall him to the squad.
Before joining up with the group yesterday, the Racing 92 stand-off texted Townsend in a bid to get up to speed with aspects of the game plan. He appears confident, however, that he will be able to fit in well if selected to play against the All Blacks at BT Murrayfield on Sunday.
“I hadn’t heard from Gregor since before the summer so I wasn’t too surprised,” Russell said of being left out of Scotland’s initial squad for the Autumn Nations Series. “He’ll have had his reasons, so I’m not looking into it too much.
“I’m not a coach and I’m not the one picking the team thankfully. I’ll get back into camp and worry about that then.”
Blair Kinghorn played at 10 against Australia two weeks ago, then Adam Hastings took over against Fiji last Saturday. It was after Hastings was injured in that game that the coach said he would consider a recall for Russell, whose original omission he claimed was on the grounds of form and consistency.
Russell did not go on Scotland’s summer tour to South America either, but it appears he did not need much of an update from Townsend prior to his return. “I text[ed] him a few times just chatting about the attack system, shape, and a couple things around that,” he said in an interview with the Daily Mail. “Nothing too much. I’ll wait and see how it is when I get in.
“It was me needing clarity on a few things from the last year and a half. I had a few questions and got some good clarity back. I gave my thoughts and we had a couple of texts back and forth to discuss a few things so we were all clear on the attacking side.
“It will be easy enough to get up to speed on the rugby side. I’ve been playing long enough.”
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel