On Tuesday evening, Finn Russell enjoyed the rare luxury of having the house to himself. His fiancee, Emma, and their two daughters, Charlie and Skye, were visiting their grandparents in Scotland, leaving a sense of peace and quiet around the family home in Bath. In their absence, Russell quickly worked through his to-do list.
Most of the preparation for their summer wedding in North Berwick is complete – ‘Emma’s dress is ready, my outfit is ready (Tartan trousers, rather than a kilt), my brothers are best men and we just need to send out the invites’ – so all that was left was to cook dinner, relax and switch on the football.
The match that night, Paris Saint-Germain’s 5-4 victory over Bayern Munich, turned out to be one of the greatest Champions League games of all time. Russell watched in awe as the teams went toe-to-toe, abandoning their efforts to contain the opposition, backing their ability to score. There were game-breaking passes and spectacular runs, which left Bath’s No 10 drawing parallels with this weekend’s Champions Cup semi-final opponents, reigning champions Bordeaux-Begles.
‘I don’t watch too much football, especially with the kids around,’ he tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘Stirling Albion are a good few leagues down (his hometown club are towards the bottom of Scotland’s fourth tier) but I went to a few PSG games when I was at Racing 92.
‘This game was just attack after attack. If you look at how PSG scored most of their goals, it was a turnover and they’d go down the far end and score straight away. I was sat there thinking, “How have they just gone from being under pressure to not being under pressure?”
‘If you look at Bordeaux, that’s how they score a lot of their tries. Against Toulouse (in the quarter-final), they were on their five-metre line a couple of times, turned over the ball, kicked it downfield and Louis Bielle-Biarrey goes after it to score on the counter-attack. The speed at which they transition is the best in the world.’
Finn Russell speaks to Daily Mail Sport ahead of a titanic Champions Cup semi-final against Bordeaux this Sunday
The likes of France winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey will be a huge threat for the defending champions
Russell, a maverick player who can do things most players cannot, was inspired by the free-flowing attacking on display during Paris Saint-Germain v Bayern Munich
The next job on Russell’s to-do list was a haircut, sharpening up his image for one of the most anticipated games of the year.
He will be pitched against Bordeaux’s Matthieu Jalibert, another attack-minded No10, in what could well be rugby’s equivalent of PSG v Bayern Munich.
When these two last met in March, Scotland and France combined for 90 points in a barnstorming encounter, with Russell coming out on top.
‘Jalibert is one of the best running 10s in the game,’ explains Russell. ‘He completely suits the style of rugby Bordeaux play, with that freedom. If he sees the space in behind for a chip then he’s going to go for it – and it comes off eight or nine times out of 10.
‘There’s a variety in his kicking; he’s got short chips, he’s got cross-field kicks, he’s got bomb up-and-unders for his wingers and he can go for 50-22s. Myself and whoever else is in the backfield have got to be alive to everything. You can’t switch off.
‘The way Bordeaux play really suits how he plays. If you were to put another 10 in that team then it wouldn’t work. In the same way, if you were to put Jalibert in a team like Sale Sharks then I don’t know if he would fit quite as well as George Ford does there.
‘Bordeaux will try to score from every turnover so we have to limit those turnovers or react off the back of it. Both teams want to attack but is there a bit more structure when everything’s on the line? I don’t think it’ll be a 3, 6, 9, 12 game with a couple of penalties. I might be completely wrong but I think it’ll be 7, 14, 21…’
If Russell can steer Bath to victory on French territory then it will go down as one of the club’s greatest victories on the road, as they return to the city where they stunned Brive to win this competition in 1998.
‘Jalibert is one of the best running 10s in the game,’ explains Russell. ‘He completely suits the style of rugby Bordeaux play, with that freedom’
Russell has the edge on Jalibert however after their most recent encounter – Scotland’s epic 50-40 win over France in the Six Nations in March
The club’s director of rugby, Johann van Graan, has full faith in his playmaker’s abilities, having watched the Scotsman grow into the complete No 10.
‘I’m not a football expert but I watched Tuesday’s game and when the best play the best, nobody gets flustered,’ says Van Graan. ‘Finn is exactly the same guy that I first met. He’s the same guy that got charged down on his first start in two minutes and gave a magnificent offload four minutes later.
‘Finn is in fantastic form. If you look at his last two years, he rarely plays below an 8 or 9 out of 10. In big games, your No 10 makes a lot of big decisions. People speak about Finn’s big moments a lot but his decision-making has become so good. He fits into this group so well.’
Russell’s form over the last few years has him right in the middle of conversations about the world’s best fly-half.
When I ask Russell who is the best No 10 in the world right now, he picks out New Zealand’s Richie Mo’unga. ‘Nobody sees too much of him because he’s in Japan, but he is proper quality,’ says Russell.
Bath’s chances of landing an upset were boosted when scrum-half Ben Spencer was declared fit to play. Bordeaux might be defending champions in the Champions Cup but they have lost 10 games this season in the Top 14, which will fuel the visitors’ confidence of an upset.
They are missing their front-line loosehead prop and opponents have made gains against Bordeaux with their aerial attack, where Bath are typically strong at retaining possession.
Russell will have Eddie Hearn in his corner, having become the latest player to join the boxing supremo’s talent agency. Hearn is hoping to grow his players’ profiles so they can enjoy some of the luxuries on offer to their footballing counterparts at PSG and Bayern Munich.
Russell’s form over the last few years has him right in the middle of conversations about the world’s best fly-half
But for the man himself there’s only one choice – New Zealand’s Richie Mo’unga, who is now playing in Japan
‘Growing the profile of players would be good because quite a few of us live cool lives. There’s one thing showing a profile on the pitch, but how do you show the other side of it?’
‘Eddie will come in with big ideas,’ says Russell. ‘Growing the profile of players would be good because quite a few of us live cool lives. There’s one thing showing a profile on the pitch, but how do you show the other side of it?
‘I’m not saying you start filming 10 different documentaries – At Home With The Russells! – but he’ll have plans on how to grow it.
‘Rugby is big in France, South Africa, UK, Ireland, Australia but the big thing is how you grow it in other countries. Boxing is on in America, Saudi, the UK, everywhere. How can we take rugby to different areas to grow the sport? One thing he said is get your story across.’
Sunday’s game in Bordeaux will be the latest chapter in Russell’s story. If Tuesday’s night on the sofa can inspire him to lead Bath to a famous victory, then it will be one of the sweetest yet.