Allan Massie: Finn Russell can still have major Scotland contribution - but Gregor Townsend has never lacked boldness

In my time Scotland has had a fair number of good fly-halves, but only three whom one would call great: John Rutherford, Gregor Townsend and Finn Russell.

Now in the last round of the Six Nations 2022 coach Townsend has relegated Russell to the bench. Given that professional rugby is now a 23-man game, it would be wrong to say Finn has been dropped, for, depending how things go, he may well have an important part to play in at least the last quarter of the match. Nevertheless, even though he hasn’t been at his magical best this tournament, it’s a bold move. But then Gregor has never lacked boldness either as player or coach.

Kinghorn has played most of his rugby at full-back or on the wing, but, on taking over as head coach at Edinburgh this season, Mike Blair immediately made him his first-choice fly-half and the revival of Edinburgh’s back-play has owed much to Kinghorn’s hard running and adroit distribution. He will ask different questions of the Irish mid-field defence, for example by running hard at Jonny Sexton’s outside shoulder. The switch may have Ireland’s Andy Farrell making some adjustments to his defensive alignment.

Of course, any change at number 10 is usually of minor importance if your forwards aren’t providing the backs with quick secure go-forward ball, and there is no team in the tournament better than Ireland at preventing their opponents from getting this. Moreover, Scotland’s performance at the breakdown has been disappointing this season. Fielding two 7s in Hamish Watson and Rory Darge worked quite well against Italy, but Ireland pose different problems, and Scotland have badly missed Jamie Ritchie since he was injured in the England match.

I doubt if many neutrals give Scotland much of a chance