Finn Russell all too aware of target on his back

Bath stand-off Finn Russell is fully expecting to be targeted by his Scotland teammates when Edinburgh visit the Rec on Friday night.

Edinburgh hooker Ewan Ashman said he was determined to get one over the former Glasgow No.10 in the shootout between the two top in Pool B in the Investec Champions Cup.

Russell, who moved past 500 points for the club in the victory over Castres, ruefully accepts he will be public frenemy No 1 for his international colleagues.

“I’ve played against Edinburgh a lot of times with Glasgow and also obviously play with a lot of their players with Scotland and it’s good fun playing against boys that you know,” said Russell.

“There’s always those bragging rights with the Six Nations coming up. If they win, if we win… we can kind of wind each other up. Hopefully we manage to deliver on Friday night or it could be a rough camp if not.

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“It’s not something in the game you’re really thinking of, you’re just playing the game, but I would imagine anyway there’ll be a couple of late shots and getting held on the ground and a bit of that kind of thing which is always the case going against players that you know.”

The Six Nations may be looming but the Champions Cup has all Russell’s attention for now. With Bath sweeping the board last season in winning the Premiership, the Challenge Cup and the Prem Rugby Cup, it is the one trophy Russell has yet to get his hands on with the West Country giants. Europe is his No 1 priority with Bath this season.

“I’d say so,” said the 33-year-old. “I think, after getting so close with Racing in 2020 against Exeter in a game we probably should have won, I’d love to win Europe. I’ve got to a couple of semi-finals and that one final.

“Obviously the PREM would be good to win again, but I think for me, having got so close before, it would be amazing to do it.

“We still have a long way to go. In this tournament you have to beat the best in the world so ideally we can get home play-offs and then we can go on from there.

“I think if we’re going to go on and really compete in this tournament, as a group of players and staff, we have to probably be better than we have been this year already.

“I know that sounds a bit strange when we’re top of the table just now, and second in the PREM but we’re probably not satisfied with where we’re playing at this year which is a good place to be in.

“We’re in good positions in both competitions but we know there’s a lot more left in us.”

Russell feels the performance in Castres last week – when Bath won 43-20 – was nearer the level the English champions should be performing at.

He feels it has taken the side a little while to adapt to the change of attack coach after Lee Blackett left for England in September and was replaced by Martin Gleeson.

“Lee and Glees have different views on how we can run the attack shape so it is kind of figuring that out,” he said.

“In the last few games we have started to play slightly wider off 10 and we have got more and more joy with that. We have focused a little bit more multi-phase to try to take teams apart like that. With the forwards we can use pick and gos because they are so good at that as you saw against Exeter when they went 38 phases from 30 metres out – it is definitely a strength of ours – but as backs we are trying to be a little bit more expansive now.”