Scottish Daily Mail

LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE BOYS

Scots are taking on world with fine blend of youths

- By John Greechan

THE ki ds are al l right. A little green, a little r aw. But they’ve got the right stuff. In abundance, in some cases. Finn Russell celebrated his 23rd birthday with a try, a key orchestrat­ing role in a bonus-point win that put his team on the front foot in this World Cup — and a hug of congratula­tions from his girlfriend, who just happens to be the reigning Miss Scotland. Finn, dear boy, where did it all go wrong?

Young f or an i nternation­al stand- off, Russell — a trainee stonemason playing i n the amateur game just a few years ago — wears the No 10 jersey with increasing confidence for both Pro12 champions Glasgow and Vern Cotter’s Scotland. Just as Mark Bennett, a year his junior, continues to shine at centre, another key decision-making position in rugby union.

Throw in fellow youthful stars like lightning full-back Stuart Hogg and Jonny Gray, the towering lock who is the baby of this group at just 21, and you can see why the Scotland coaching staff are so optimistic about the future.

In the here and now, with a short turnaround before the Scots face a well-rested USA side at Elland Road, they’re increasing­ly confident about what the young guns can achieve. Especially with Russell pulling the strings.

‘He had a good birthday,’ said Scotland assistant coach Duncan Hodge, no mean fly-half himself back in the day, of a player of truly frightenin­g potential.

‘It’s hard for guys in the decisionma­king positions — 9, 10, 15, 8 — because you just need miles on the clock. You need game time. You need to accrue time at a level of rugby and a standard of rugby to build up your bank of decision-making.

‘The more rugby Finn plays, it can only help. He was pretty assured against Japan.

‘But he has got strengths that are right up there with some of the best. He has real qualities to his game. With guys like him, you don’t want to restrict that; he wants to play the game and he will make mistakes. It’s just about balancing that off with managing the game.

‘Players like him and Hoggy might be slightly unsafe sometimes — but you don’t want to take away what these guys have got. We’ve got some good young backs and they want to express themselves. That’s what we want, although we also want game- management and decision-making to balance it off. Get that and you’re happy.’

If there was a maturity about Scotland’s win over Japan, that was perhaps the most pleasing aspect of the display for Cotter and his backroom staff; watching so many slip-ups and foul-ups during the Six Nations whitewash can’t have been easy for coaches.

‘People have identified mental strength as key — and we’ve tried to address that ourselves,’ said Hodge. ‘We know that, in general terms, we’ve got a pretty young group. Look at some of the guys who started against Japan.

‘There are times when that is going to be an issue, we know that and we’ve worked through that, putting strategies in place to help everyone.

‘The real issue is they just don’t have the experience. They’ve not been in these situations as often as someone who has played more pressure rugby. More experience­d guys are sometimes just more tuned into what needs done. Some things you can’t prepare for, you just have to learn on the job.

‘You saw during the Six Nations we needed to work on that side of the game. To be fair, against Japan, there were a couple of mistakes — but generally we were pretty good.

‘We were composed on the ball, we didn’t turn it over easily and fuel Japan’s attack. We weren’t silly when we had the ball, that was the key, keeping a strangle on them.’

Russell backed up Hodge’s testimony on a game plan that relied on set moves plus flashes of inspiratio­n, admitting: ‘We just did what we have been drilled to do in the last few months.

‘The plan was to put it out the back, let Mark and I get hands on the ball early and make space for the full-back and wingers. But, for my try, I saw some space and thought: “I’m going to have a crack at that.”

‘It was great just to get started. We were down in Gloucester for a week, saw four games at the weekend and, with the break, it almost didn’t feel like the World Cup.’

All of the players will be feeling like they’re in this tournament now, with the Scotland physios and medical staff likely to be working overtime to banish niggles, bruises and inevitable soreness.

There will be pool sessions, stretching sessions, plus a few other minor kinks in the normal routine. The most obvious restrictio­n Russell could think of, when quizzed about team plans, is a proposed ban on coffee after 3pm.

There’s more to recovery than that, of course. Between now and Sunday’s kick-off, the strength and conditioni­ng staff will effectivel­y be asking players to withdraw some of the energy and power put in the bank over a 12-week pre-season of serious intensity.

‘I think we’re going to see the benefit of all the hard work done over the summer, from up in the mountains in France to back at Murrayfiel­d, all the warm- up games,’ said Hodge.

‘ It’s such a privilege to have everyone together for 10 or 12 weeks. In the Six Nations or Autumn Tests, players rock up on the Monday for a game on the Saturday. That’s not much preparatio­n.

‘It doesn’t give you much time to f ormulate strategies, work on set-pieces… there are so many parts to a winning rugby team that it’s hard to pull it all together in a short space of time.

‘Having this time together has enabled us to work on things, get the players more comfortabl­e playing with each other and doing what the coaches want them to do. I think that showed in the win over Japan.

The USA are a big and physically imposing side. They’ve had a week’s rest, they played well against Samoa and we don’t envisage them making too many changes.

‘We will change things tactically. They are a different team to Japan, they play in a different way, so we will have to adapt as well.’

 ??  ?? FEARLESS YOUNG WARRIORS: THE GLASGOW
MARK BENNETT
POSITION: Centre Club: Glasgow Warriors AGE: 22
CAPS: 10 POINTS: 25
FINN RUSSELL
POSITION: Stand-off Club: Glasgow Warriors AGE: 22
CAPS: 12 POINTS: 14
FEARLESS YOUNG WARRIORS: THE GLASGOW MARK BENNETT POSITION: Centre Club: Glasgow Warriors AGE: 22 CAPS: 10 POINTS: 25 FINN RUSSELL POSITION: Stand-off Club: Glasgow Warriors AGE: 22 CAPS: 12 POINTS: 14
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