Russell primed for Guinness Six Nations

Since then he has racked up 51 caps for his country and is now regarded as one of the best fly-halves in the world.

Russell is now one of the more experienced players in camp ahead of this year’s Guinness Six Nations kicking off this weekend and with a number of new faces in Gregor Townsend’s squad, he’s looking to support them as they make their mark on the international stage.

Speaking to scottishrugby.org, he said: “I was chatting to Cammy Redpath and obviously it’s his first inclusion and he’s only 21, and that’s the age I was when I got my first cap.

“It has gone by fast; you don’t really think about it like that. It’s one of those that when you’re playing with young guys, it makes you realise that I’m probably one of the more experienced here.

“Myself and Hoggy are 28-years-old, so in rugby you’re getting on, but in life you’re not that old. We’re seen to be some of the more experienced guys and it does go by really quickly.

“If I’m lucky I’ve got another three, four, five years playing for Scotland depending on who’s coming through. It’s making me appreciate more being in the squad and playing for my country, whereas before it was the excitement of being still young and after seven years it’s given me a slightly different view on it.”

Scotland travel to play England at Twickenham on Saturday afternoon to get their Guinness Six Nations campaign underway at a ground which of course served as the scene for the remarkable 38-38 draw two years ago.

Reflecting for a moment on that outrageous spectacle, Russell recounted: “The first-half England got out quickly, we were nowhere near where we needed to be and I think that showed in the score line. When Rambo [Stuart McInally] scored that try just before half-time it gave us a little bit of belief of ‘right okay, we can try get back and show something here’ but it was still 31-7 at half-time, you are still up against it down at Twickenham against England.

“The second-half we had nothing to lose as we had already been beaten, we had been written off. Speaking to fans and friends after it, they turned off, they knew we had lost. We had that freedom to play ‘it didn’t matter on the result now, we’ve lost’ we can just play our rugby and have a go at them.

“It was a great game to be part of and there was a lot of learning in that game, but I was still so disappointed at the end thinking that was a game we could have won. But then if you think about that at half-time no one would have expected that result so we had to be happy with a draw, whereas looking back when we had five minutes to go and we were seven points up, it was tough to take but that’s sport and you can’t really say that we should have won that game because England should have won it after that first-half.”