Finn Russell is a high-risk, long-pass, clifftop unicycling player – the kind I love

We are being challenged. The gauntlet has been well and truly tossed at our feet. And because the thrower was Finn Russell, it has arrived from some distance back, artfully spun.

The question first of all concerns sport and how we want our teams to play. Narrowing it down, this is about rugby. But widening it out, national character comes into play. Who do we think we are? Who do we want to be?

Russell has responded to criticisms of the Scotland team and his own performances in the most recent Six Nations. If you remember, there was wild talk beforehand about us winning the tournament. In the end we finished fourth.

“Average to be honest,” is Russell’s assessment of just two victories, the opener against England, which only increased the hype, and the fairly predictable one against Italy. Of his performances he says this season has been “not my best”. Tiredness from the Lions tour was probably a factor and what should have been “rest days” during the Six Nations were often spent on a plane, shuttling between Paris and Edinburgh, club and country. That’s the lot of the overseas star, of course – “part of the job”.

The overseas star and, in Scotland’s case, the biggest star. So much is down to him. If he’s having a great game then Scotland are probably winning, and winning with the flair which has heightened expectations about this team. But if he’s not, well …

At times during the championship when opponents tightened their defences in an attempt to squat on the lid of his box of tricks, Scotland could look laboured. It was a flashback to the early part of the century, pre-Finn, when the backline had no zip.

England in that first game were determined not to be caught out by the long, long pass from Russell to Huw Jones –