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More than a year since first getting the keys to his house in Bath, Finn Russell is finally beginning to feel at home in the spa city. Afforded a summer off by Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend, Russell has used the time wisely, welcoming a second daughter, fixing up the garden and pootling around the stone streets on an e-bike as he acquainted himself fully with his new habitat.
“During the season, you don’t get time to fully settle in,” Russell explains. Having made his switch from Racing 92, the fly half jumped from World Cup woe last autumn straight into the Gallagher Premiership season. “You settle in with the rugby side, but you’re getting used to the house and the city. Now my partner has settled in really well and she’s loving it here.
“I was back in Paris at the weekend and you can tell there were so many other sports and events going on in Paris. Rugby is only a very small part of it. In Bath, it feels like it’s only rugby. There are a few cafes and restaurants that we go to often. We chat away to other people and they seem very friendly, which is nice. Whether that’s because we had a good season…if results had gone another way, it might have been different!”
A good season it was indeed. Green shoots had begun to sprout at The Rec before Russell’s arrival but his sprinkling of magic only encouraged their germination, returning one of English rugby’s most successful clubs to the Premiership final.
Bath came within minutes of domestic triumph and are well placed to go again. Where other title chasers have lost key figures, Johann van Graan’s squad remains largely intact. A couple of key additions have added depth – Russell picks out young gun openside Guy Pepper, lured south from Newcastle, as one to watch – but it isn’t just the Scot feeling settled.
“As a group, we’re in a good place right now,” Russell says with Bath preparing to open the new campaign against champions Northampton on Friday 20 September, live on TNT Sports. “We’ve not had too many changes, it should be easy to slip in.
“It had been a long time since I was in a final. Getting back into a final gives you that taste for it again. We had a red card after 20 minutes and we were ahead until the 73rd minute – we got so close, so it drives you a little bit more.
“We can’t look back on last season and think, ‘ah we got to the final, we’ll get there again’. It’s back to square one. There’s belief in the processes we go through in the game and also in the players that we’ve got.
“But last year, eight out of the 10 teams could have qualified with two games to go. A few changes, you never know how things are going to go, and last year showed how close it can be. One bad result or off performance can cost you that top four spot.”
The new member of his family and Bath’s preseason have prevented Russell from spending time on the golf course, his game developing with help from brother-in-law Ewen Ferguson and a friendship with Scottish Open winner Bob MacIntyre. If a tendency to be over-ambitious has kept his handicap in the mid-teens – “I try and play as if I’m a scratch golfer: if there is a 350-yard par four, I’m going to try and drive the green” – it also reflects the sense of creativity and adventure Russell has used to his advantage on the rugby pitch.
That spirit and skill remains crucial to Scotland a decade on from his debut even as depth develops behind him. Russell was an interested observer of Scotland’s summer tour of the Americas, the absent co-captain ready to pull on the starting shirt ahead of the autumn. Next year, a third tour with the British & Irish Lions seems a certainty.
In the year after the last Lions trip, Russell admitted to feeling burned out by a relentless schedule. Aided by his summer off, he has cut down by 17 pounds since then, and there is plenty left in the tank for a player who came to professional rugby later than some after an apprenticeship in stonemasonry.
“I’m definitely planning on making the [2027] World Cup,” Russell stresses. “I’ve not got any notion of retiring any time soon. I’m 31 now but feel I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in.
“As long as I’m still enjoying it and playing well, there is no point in me stopping. You get a lot of lows in sport, but the highs you get you can’t get anywhere else. Having young kids now, I’d love for them to be old enough to remember some of my career. I’ve got photos of me and my daughter at Murrayfield running around, and at Bath, but she won’t remember any of these. Another four, five years, she’ll remember them – I might have to play until I’m 45 if I have another one!
“I have bought some properties back home and I’m about to buy some more. I am open to what I will do after, I am not entirely sure yet. I just want to set everything up while I am playing so I can finish when I want to and not be forced into something. But I’ve got no intention of finishing up from either rugby or international rugby: I’m going to play as long as I can.”
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