The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Finn gave advice to replacement
Adam Hastings deleted social media from his phone last week but accepted a facetime call from Finn Russell to take his support after taking his place in the Scotland team against Ireland in Dublin.
Hastings scored all of Scotland’s points with four penalties in the 19-12 defeat and won the praise of such luminaries as former Lions captain Brian O’Driscoll for his performance taking over for the absent Russell, who left camp in the first week and has yet to return.
But the absent stand-off took the time to send his support and encouragement to Hastings on the eve of the game, and texted him just before the game with more advice.
“Finn is a class bloke, he’s been brilliant with me ever since I arrived at Glasgow a few years ago,” said Hastings after the game.
“He’s been a good friend of mine ever since. It was really nice of him to speak and to text me and it helped make me feel comfortable.
“He wants to play for Scotland, he has done so and has done very well. He’s always Scottish.
“He was wishing us as a team all the best. There is no bad blood at all. At the end of the day we’re still mates and we look out for each other.”
Some of the potential fan reaction after Russell left camp convinced Hastings to shut the social media world out for a week.
“There is always a focus on the number 10, so there was nothing which was totally new,” he said.
“It was more the Twitter and keyboard warriors coming out and labelling you.
“I just came off social media and deleted my Twitter account so I didn’t read any of it, and it was fine.
“I’ve done it a couple of times before. I did it before the PRO14 final at Celtic Park and again this week.
“I thought it would all kick off just after the whole thing with Finn started, so I took myself away from that.
“Maybe when I was younger I would have been into it and read it and allowed it to get into my head, so it’s better that I stayed off it.
“I might download it again tonight and have a wee read.”
He’s now focused on next week’s battle with England, and he wants to hold on to the jersey no matter what happens off the field.
“It would make my whole family proud to play in the Calcutta Cup, but from a selfish stance I just want to play,” said the son of former Scotland and Lions captain Gavin.
“We’ve shown that we don’t have a problem breaching teams and making line breaks. It’s now just about converting and finishing.”
As for the most glaring missed chance of all, Hastings said Stuart Hogg has plenty collateral in the bank for Scotland to cover that.
“He’s such a competitive player, so he’s disappointed with that,” he said.
“It’s a chance gone but he’s probably due one after all the moments of brilliance he’s produced over the years, so we will let him off.”
Hogg was hardest on himself for his blunder, dropping the ball over the line as he reached to touch down for a try with no defender near him, calling it “a schoolboy error”, but head coach Gregor Townsend also absolved the captain of blame.
“We don’t judge players on one mistake in the game – there’s hundreds of mistakes in any game,” said Townsend.
“We had other opportunities to score five and seven points, and he’ll be fine and will be bounce back. I think he’s a real driving force as captain of this side.”
Hogg had missed some training through illness during the week, added the coach.
“The adversity the team has gone through before this game and how Stuart has led the team with so many challenges in front of him, gives me great encouragement how great a captain he can be over the next few years,” added Townsend.
As for Russell, said Townsend, it was a case of “we’ll see” if he would return this week but he sounded like he wasn’t up for messing with the continuity the team had built up since the stand-off’s departure.
“Anyone who missed the last two weeks will find it difficult to get in the squad,” he said.
“We had two weeks’ training and cohesion was very important in our selection this week, and I believe cohesion helped how we played today.
“Adam was excellent, we could all have done with more possession in his hands. He was making some good decisions when to attack, his passing was excellent and he defended well.
“To think that was his first Six Nations start, he was a real running threat.”