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Russell warned he must make the first move to salvage Scotland career

(Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Finn Russell has been told it is down to him to salvage his Scotland career after he was stood down for the Guinness Six Nations opener with Ireland following a late-night drinking session.

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The maverick Racing 92 stand-off’s participation in the rest of the championship has been thrown into serious doubt after Gregor Townsend decided he had no option but to take disciplinary action when Russell failed to report for training on Monday morning.

The fall-out erupted when Russell headed straight for the team hotel bar after flying into Edinburgh on Sunday night, with the Dark Blues talisman then ignoring requests from team-mates and backroom staff to stop drinking.

The 27-year-old has now returned to Paris with his international future hanging by a thread.

Former British and Irish Lions prop Peter Wright has warned Russell he will need to make the first move if he wants to mend his relationship with Townsend.

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“I would hope that they can get this patched up soon”, Wright, capped 21 times by Scotland, told the PA news agency.

“Who makes the first move, though? I’d suggest it’s probably down to Finn if he is the one who has left. But if the Scottish management see him as being that important do they try to step in and sort it out?

“It’s a real sticky situation – but I think it’s easier for Finn to come back and be the humble guy.

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“I think it’s really in his court now. He has to make a decision about what has he done, has he lost the plot a wee bit, is it time to extend an olive branch to Gregor? Or will he decide he’s just not going to play for Scotland under Gregor?

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“If Scotland do well this year without him, that could end up being a long time.

“These are all big questions but I think the ball is firmly in Finn’s court.”

Since news of the fall-out broke, Russell has ‘liked’ a number of social media posts, including a tweet which says there is “nothing wrong with standing up for yourself”.

The job of building bridges between the former Glasgow star and his old Warriors boss Townsend could fall to new skipper Stuart Hogg.

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However, Wright said: “If you had Greig Laidlaw or John Barclay as captain, it might have been easier to do that

“This situation just heaps more pressure on Hogg. Is he the man to broker a peace deal?

“Or do you go out with the camp and bring in Mark Dodson or perhaps a respected rugby figure like John Jeffrey?

“Or do they sit down like two adults, get their grievances out on the table and get it fixed?

“I’d like to think they are both mature enough to do that. “But I really believe that there is no player bigger than the team and from that point of view Russell is probably the one who has to back down a little bit.

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“But if neither can back down then for this Six Nations there can only be one winner – and that’s Gregor.

“The SRU can’t be seen not to back their head coach. Otherwise his position is untenable because he has no authority left in the eyes of the squad.

“If Finn has broken the protocol, then it’s very difficult for Gregor, no matter who the player is, not to take action.”

The news will come as a major blow to Scotland fans as they look for improvement following a disappointing World Cup campaign, which started with a 27-3 defeat by Ireland and ended in elimination before the knockout stages.

And Wright admits is he already fearing the worst ahead of the Championships.

He said: “Ireland will now be in camp thinking, ‘outstanding. Their main threat is not playing. Whoever replaces him is not as good’.

“For Scotland, Finn is a guy who gives his team-mates a massive lift just by having his name on the team-sheet. There will be guys now whose heads will be going down a wee bit.

“Can they still beat Ireland? Yeah if we’re being optimistic and positive. “But I just think this is deflating as hell because I can’t think of another player in the last 25 years who has been as influential as Finn, even going back through the glory years, the Grand Slams of ’84 and ’90.

“I think he’s the most influential player we’ve ever had and going to Dublin without him is such a knock to our self-belief.”

– PressAssociation

England coach Eddie Jones says he wants the team to be “the greatest team the rugby world has ever seen” following his announcement of the team’s Six Nations squad:

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J
JW 5 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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