Flyhalf Finn Russell believes running the Springboks close and beating Argentina, has set them up to push for silverware in the Nations Championship.
Scotland lost 42-28 to the world champions in South Africa at Loftus in July, with the scores level at halftime. A week before, Gregor Townsend’s side had beaten Los Pumas in Cordoba.
Those performances have given the Scots reason to believe ahead of their European leg of the Nations Championship, but Russell knows that coming close against the best teams will count for little if Scotland cannot find consistency.
“We had some good performances in the summer and we just need to kick on from there and try and beat the top teams rather than running them close and losing,” the flyhalf said.
“We had a big win away from home against Argentina, then travelled to South Africa and ran them close. It was great to have a good performance but that was a game that we had enough chances where we definitely should have won that.”
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Scotland begin their November campaign against the All Blacks, still chasing a first win over Dave Rennie’s charges. They then face three more tough matches as they look to secure a place in the Nations Championship finals weekend at Twickenham.
Russell, who is closing in on his 100th Scotland cap, believes the next 12 months offer his team three opportunities to win a major tournament, with the Nations Championship followed by the Six Nations and the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia.
“There’s three competitions over the next 12 months, we’ve got the Nations Championship the next four weeks, then Six Nations and obviously the World Cup,” he said.
“I think that’s amazing to have the opportunity three times to potentially win something. Since I’ve been with Scotland we’ve never won anything, in terms of tournaments.”
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But the 34-year-old warned that Scotland cannot afford to follow impressive victories with disappointing defeats.
“We can’t go off a big win against France to then losing to Ireland like we did in the Six Nations,” Russell said.
“We need to be stacking these wins one on top of the next. And in the summer we didn’t manage to do that after Argentina. We need to be winning these games back to back to challenge to win tournaments.”
Photo: David Rogers/Getty Images
The post Russell eyes breakthrough after scaring Boks appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
Flyhalf Finn Russell believes running the Springboks close and beating Argentina has set them up to push for silverware in the Nations Championship.
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