Russell plays it cool over England’s defensive blitz

SCOTLAND talisman Finn Russell is unfazed by the prospect of being targeted by England’s new blitz defence in today’s Calcutta Cup showdown at Murrayfield.

The visitors have adopted a more aggressive approach for this year’s Guinness Six Nations after highly regarded defence coach Felix Jones joined Steve Borthwick’s backroom team in the wake of helping South Africa win the World Cup.

England are expected to try to swarm stand-off Russell, pictured, and his midfield colleagues in an effort to neutralise Scotland, but the 31-year-old has no issue with the possibility of being singled out.

“It’s probably similar to a lot of teams in that the 10s are the key players in attack,” said Russell, who will co-captain the side.

“I’m not sure what England are going to do – if they are going to fire out the line and try to take me out, or shut me down from the outside.

“That is something we will have to figure out in the game. We will have to be able to adapt, with myself and Sione (Tuipulotu) and Huw (Jones) being on the same page and having Blair (Kinghorn) out wide as another option. Although the 10 controls a lot of the attack, it is not just down to me to create things.

“We will be looking to other boys to get away from them.”

Scotland were tamed the last time they came up against a Jonesinspired blitz defence when they lost 18-3 to South Africa at the World Cup in September.

But Russell insists they have learned from that encounter.

“We have looked back and talked about that game, and obviously looked at England’s first two games of this campaign,” said Russell.

“I think our learnings from the World Cup were not to go into our shells if we do feel the pressure.

“There were chances in that game against South Africa that we probably never saw on the pitch. Under pressure we probably went into our shell a little bit.

“We just need to have belief in ourselves and trust the work we have put in over the last six months to a year.

“At times we will be under pressure and it will be tough, but we can fall back to what we have done building up to this game.

“We can have belief and confidence in ourselves and hopefully we can take the chances that will be out there.”