HAVING been declared free of symptoms of concussion after being injured playing for his club Racing 92 at the weekend, Finn Russell was back in the Scotland camp yesterday, still hopeful of returning to the French capital as part of the national side on Saturday.
The playmaker suffered a head injury during his club’s 34-29 defeat from fellow Scot and former Glasgow Warrior Richie Gray’s Toulouse in the Top-14 on Sunday. Under the head injury assessment (HIA) protocols, Russell was not allowed to resume playing after he was taken off for initial checks.
With an extended spell clear of symptoms required before a player can then return to action, assistant coach Danny Wilson yesterday acknowledged that Russell now faces a race against time.
“To my knowledge and my understanding, there’s a minimum of six days and there are six days between then [when he was injured] and the game, but everything needs to go swimmingly well,” said Wilson.
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“I’ve only briefly seen him because we’ve done a fair bit of clarity work today and I’ve been with the forwards doing that work. We come together a bit more as a team this afternoon so I’ve only seen him in passing, but he’s in his usual high spirits. Nothing untoward.
“He’s symptom-free today which is a big step in the right direction and none of the boys will do much today. It’ll be walk-throughs and clarity, gameplan points this afternoon will be about recovery because a number of the boys played at the weekend, and again jogging through and clarity work before tomorrow’s training.
“No player will do an enormous amount today. Finn won’t be doing any of the jogging through, probably not even the walk-through stuff. He didn’t do anything this morning either, just had a coffee and watched. As I understand there’s stages you need to go through and today’s stage, you do nothing.”
Russell was just the latest of a string of key players to pick up injuries during this Six Nations Championship with Glasgow Warriors co-captain Ryan Wilson having been ruled out of the rest of the competition, another knee injury victim Huw Jones reckoned to be unlikely to recover before it ends and their club-mate Stuart Hogg also struggling with a shoulder problem. And the extent of concern over the stand-off was reflected in the recall to the squad yesterday of Worcester Warrior Duncan Weir.
He was joined in receiving a call-up by Edinburgh trio Magnus Bradbury, Dougie Fife and James Johnstone as well as Glasgow Warriors front-row forwards Zander Fagerson and George Turner, while injured Glasgow Warriors pair George Horne (shoulder) and Stafford McDowall (ankle), as well as front-row forwards David Cherry, Murray McCallum (both Edinburgh) and Jake Kerr (Leicester Tigers), have all returned to their clubs.
“We talked about injuries making opportunities for others and there’s some real good news there, we had three outstanding rugby players returning to play and not just play, but play, I thought, really well,” said Wilson.
“The Friday game, from Magnus Bradbury’s point of view, was a man of the match performance, and I was really impressed with him and likewise Zander and George against the Blues. That’s good news for them to come into the squad as we’ve had some changes in the forward pack. We don’t want injuries and they are outstanding players the ones who have picked up injuries, but we’ve also got other outstanding players in the squad. Other guys get an opportunity that maybe they haven’t had in recent weeks and that’s exciting for us in the future.”
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