Russell has the mastery to push Bath to the top

FINN Russell is, with out a doubt, an ultra talented fly-half and the Scot has a touch of old school about him in terms of being like the very good attacking 10s of 30 years ago. I mean this in terms of Russell not playing to a game plan or structure, but playing much more what he sees with his own eyes and projecting it forward.

Fly-halves like Russell play not just in the moment, but by picturing what happens next. It is like: “This is what I see, this is what I’m going to do – and I want everyone to read it, and play off me.”

Russell’s rugby intelligence makes him one of those rare players who can see space before most people, and then do something to manipulate defenders into going where he wants them to. It’s like a grandmaster chess player continually manipulating the board and getting people into a position that he can exploit.

We have seen him do this for Glasgow, then Racing 92, and now for Bath. There has been no World Cup hangover for Russell, who has already shown his array of skills for his new club since making his debut against Newcastle at The Rec. The following weekend he exploited a four-on-three against Saracens by running between two defenders and passing out of the side to a support runner, creating the overlap for a try.

We have also seen his quality and variety of passing and pinpoint kick-pass create other opportunities for Bath in a narrow home loss against Leicester and last weekend’s thumping away win over Gloucester.

What’s clear is that by showing what he can do from the offset there has been no danger of Russell going into his shell, or holding back. Instead, it has put the emphasis on is new team-mates reacting to his prompts – and it is something that is familiar to me, because in my era at Bath we were always told “find the ball, follow the ball-carrier”.

However, a lot of Bath players in the late 1980s and 1990s didn’t play for England because they wanted to play a mauling game, whereas at Bath we played a faster rucking game – so going from Bath to England you had to change your style.