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Six Nations boost for Scotland as Russell given all-clear to play in Top 14

Scotland out-half Finn Russell (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Scotland’s Finn Russell has been pencilled in for Saturday club action with Racing 92 after safely coming through a midweek assessment in Paris with neurologist Jean-Francois Chermann.

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The out-half missed last weekend’s Six Nations match for Scotland against France due to a concussion suffered during a Top 14 match on February 17, six days before he was due to line out at the Stade de France for his country.

His absence was a massive blow for the Scots, who lost 27-10 and generally looked uninspired against a struggling opposition that had come into the match under a cloud following their heavy defeat to England.

Russell was ruled out of Test selection on Tuesday of last week, Scotland confirming at the time that he had not satisfied that day’s component of the graduated return to play protocol.

It left him making do with BBC TV pundit duty at the Test match while the No10 jersey was taken by Peter Horne, with Adam Hastings providing cover from the bench.

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Russell, though, has now been given the all-clear by his club and will play on Saturday against La Rochelle – although his return will add to the weekend’s nervous viewing for Scottish boss Gregor Townsend.

Three of the four non-Scottish based players who featured in Townsend’s matchday 23 in Paris are also due to start with their clubs ahead of next week’s home Six Nations showdown with unbeaten Wales.

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Sean Maitland, Josh Strauss and Gary Graham will all feature for Saracens, Sale and Newcastle respectively, with skipper Greig Laidlaw the only one rested as Clermont have chosen to go with Morgan Parra, who has been dropped from the France squad.

Russell’s injury a fortnight ago highlighted the risk of the Scots relying heavily on star players contracted to clubs outside its jurisdiction. The out-half suffered a game-ending 37th minute collision when a Toulouse player’s knee collided with the side of his face.

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fl 45 minutes ago
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I don't listen to Nigel Farage. Really not sure where you'd be getting that from. Maybe you should stick to responding to what I've actually said, rather than speculating about my sources.


I'm not sure what you think Putin is going to do. He'll probably conquer Ukraine, but its taken him a long time, and cost him a lot of soldiers. Hitler overran France in a matter of weeks and then started bombing Britain. At this rate Putin might make it to Paris by 2080? I think he'll give up long before then!


I don't see what Stalinist language policy has to do with any of what we're talking about. De-Ukrainization took place in the 1930s, but the genocide of Palestine is taking place in 2025. If your argument is that the invasion of Ukraine is part of a longer history of Russian suppression of Ukraine then you might have a point, but that really just underlines the key difference between Hitler and Putin; Hitler wanted to dominate as much area as possible and so posed a threat to all of Europe, whereas Putin wants to force the assimilation of those who have historically been within the Russian sphere of influence, so only poses a threat to eastern europe and central asia.


"Read and think for yourself."

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