Russell, like O'Driscoll before him, is being misrepresented by media cheerleaders

Cut to the media hotel in Christchurch and, with time enough to ensure that they seized the agenda before the Sunday papers published, word was issued that members of the Lions management, Clive Woodward himself and the PR man he had borrowed from Tony Blair if memory serves, would be available in the lobby to discuss the incident that had ended the involvement in the tour of Brian O'Driscoll, the Lions captain.

To this day no-one has provided compelling evidence to support the claim that O'Driscoll was the victim of a 'spear tackle' at the hands of Tana Umaga, a player who had a near-flawless disciplinary record and reputation, and Keven Mealamu.

Yet, in briefing after briefing over the next few days, it was repeated and the travelling press corps lapped it up before then regurgitating it faithfully.

Having realised very early on just how much of a distraction this had become when, in the middle of the following week, it was shoehorned into an answer to a question put to Eddie O'Sullivan, one of the assistant coaches, I snorted slightly derisively and shook my head, only to feel the nudge of an elbow.

Whipping round I found Alastair Campbell sitting next to me and his facial expression, on detecting my obvious irritation, switched rapidly from reproachful to a knowing smile.

It had been claimed ahead of that tour that the king of spin had put together files on every British and Irish journalist who had applied for accreditation, the presumption being that he wanted to know how best to approach them.

Certainly I saw, on many occasions in the course of the tour, him hanging over the shoulder of weel-kent rugby writers as they composed articles, but this was the only interaction he and I had.

Naturally I like to think this was down to the fact that his research had told him that any attempt at interference would be repelled, rather than it merely being the case that he might regard the world's oldest newspaper as too regional to matter as he applied the bulk of his efforts to working on the London-based media with which he was so familiar.

However what was shocking, to the extent that it very much jaundiced the view of the brand that the Lions had become, was how ready and willing so many of the press were to get on board with what felt like a distraction campaign.

In fairness this cheerleading approach could be justified commercially since it was exactly what their readers, viewers and listeners wanted to be told.

However, sometimes in this business you have to be prepared to tell people what they do not want to hear in terms of offering objective analysis based on proper information.

Which takes us to the reaction of Scottish press and pundits to the Finn Russell case and the consensus that seems to have been reached that the stand-off is the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice.

His case is being appealed and he may yet get away with a suspension, but even if so that will not justify some of the reaction.

No longer involved in these matters on a day-to-day basis I have no idea how much orchestration has been involved from those with greatest incentive to distract us from thinking about the fact that in the year that the SRU's strategic target of winning the World Cup will or will not be met, this was, under its current hierarchy, Scotland's 14th defeat in 17 Six Nations Championship matches.

However, there has been at best a willful naivete about claims that Russell is being penalised for what players are coached to do in keeping their eyes on the ball, or that the belated evasive action he took, essentially to protect himself from injury, somehow reduces his culpability.

In a professional sport Russell had what is legally referred to as a duty of care to the man in the air, one all players should be aware of as a result of incidents which date back to Geoff Cross's debut collision with Lee Byrne in the same fixture six years ago and even before that.

Those in the air going for the ball have all the rights. Those on the ground must either get up off it, in which case they are far less likely to send their rivals into a nose spin because of the different forces and leverage at play, or avoid entering the contact area.

As when Sam Warburton, the Wales captain, seemed extremely unlucky in being deemed reckless rather than malicious when getting his timing wrong in turning a fine tackle into a dangerous one and consequently receiving a red card in the World Cup semi-final four years ago, these are judgments that players have to get right.

On which note my first reaction on seeing the incident live was to be extremely fearful for Russell and I was relieved when the card that came out was yellow.

No amount of outrage among Scots who are disappointed by the outcome should influence the disciplinary committee when it reviews this and, for all that I hope that Russell gets lucky again, I suggest that for perspective a peek at the coverage in Wales is in order.

My old chum Simon Thomas, a very reasonable sort who writes for the Western Mail group, has reported that the verdict in Wales had been split with 55 per cent believing it should have been a yellow card and 45 per cent a red one.

If those figures are accurate it suggests that no-one in Wales is accepting what seems to be the thrust of the argument of many Scots that Russell is innocent because his eyes were on the ball and he was taking evasive action, it is merely an assessment of the extent of his guilt.

Consider that the Welsh have little to gain from seeing him banned, since they are now hoping Scotland can do them some favours down the line. Also consider which of these places boasts more innate understanding of what you can and cannot do on a rugby pitch.

There may have been no malice aforethought and he may essentially have shown insufficient awareness of the consequences of his actions after finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the claims of innocence being made on Russell's behalf must be seen as over-stating if not blatantly misrepresenting his case.