Scotland, of course, still have a bit to do before then. First they must do what they’ve never managed since Gregor Townsend took over as head coach in 2017 by beating Ireland in the first leg of a highly anticipated Super Saturday trilogy. They would then have to cross their fingers that this beleaguered and battered England side can somehow recover from their bruising defeat to Italy by stopping France in Paris later in the day. Neither part of that equation will be straightforward but Russell, who won his 93th Scotland cap in the win over France, believes it would top anything he has achieved in the game should he get his hands on the Six Nations trophy.
He said: “It’s new territory for us going into the last game with a chance to win it. I’ve probably never been in a position where that’s been an option. I’ve won a few titles, I’ve been in finals before. But I think winning something with Scotland, especially the Six Nations, would be definitely the peak of my career. When you start playing for Scotland, you always want to win it, obviously. We’ve never put ourselves in a position where we can win it.
“Now we’re in that position, it’s all to play for this weekend. Making sure that the occasions that we get to play our game will be so important. It will definitely be up there as the top thing in my career if we can win it. I think we’re ready. We know what’s on the line now. But we don’t want to build it up to something and let ourselves get carried away or let the occasion get to us. We need to treat this just as any other Test match.
“There will be a lot more outside noise after putting 50 points on France. I think for us, it’ll be about making sure we keep it within the circle and we keep doing what we’re doing. We’re still building a lot of from the Argentina game in November with that tough loss, and then [losing to] Italy to start the tournament. It’s never the perfect performance. As long as we can keep the outside noise outside the circle and not let it get to us, then that’s the main thing.”
Russell joked that he would message his Bath team-mates in the England squad to make sure they were up for Le Crunch on Saturday night but acknowledged that game would become meaningless from a Scottish perspective if they didn’t win in the Aviva earlier in the day.
He added: “I’ll be texting them, don’t worry! But us and England are very different teams. France and England are very different. I could try and give them some tips, but whether or not that’s going to suit their game plan or not, I’m not sure. I think we’ll get to that when it comes on Saturday night. We can’t really start thinking about that until we’ve actually had the performance that we’re looking for during the game.”
Scotland’s failure to defeat Ireland has become a recurring issue over the past decade and Russell admitted they would have to give it considerable thought in the days ahead on how to finally banish that hoodoo.
“I think it’s been nine years now since we’ve beaten them, it’s quite a while,” he added. “But again, there’s that monkey on our back – that’s all outside noise. We need to make sure we get our preparation right and we build for this weekend. We can’t start thinking we’ve not beaten them in nine years. This has to be the one. We don’t need any added pressure for this game. We just need to make sure we get our mindset right and we perform on the weekend. We know a lot of the players from the summer [the British and Irish Lions squad], we know a lot of the coaching staff. We’ve got a better understanding of them but it’s going to come down to 15 on 15 or 23 on 23 on the pitch on the weekend.
“I think if you watch Ireland’s game against Wales [on Friday] night, they had so many opportunities and didn’t take as many as they probably would like to.They’ll come off the back of that bonus point win and probably not be happy with that, I’d imagine. Andy Farrell will probably be quite hard on them and driving them to do better this weekend. I think that’s the beauty of this last match. We’re in with a chance of winning and so are they.”
Russell felt Scotland’s 50-40 win over France was another sign of the squad’s improved mindset and dealing better with adversity.
“It was a brilliant Test match. We got out quickly and France came back and hit us with a couple of tries. The mindset didn’t change, the pace never dropped. I think it’s something we’ve actually got really good at this campaign. I think against Wales, when we went behind, we had to find our way back into that game and get the win. Today, we had the scoreboard for most of the game and France obviously came back in the end. The main thing was the belief in the squad and the mindset we had.”