Scotland’s Ben White: ‘Finn is probably the world’s best fly-half at the minute’

E ven six weeks ago you would have had long odds on Ben White being one of the most pivotal players in the Six Nations Championship. Or, indeed, on Scotland beating all the other “home nations” in the same campaign. Aside from their grand slam seasons of 1984 and 1990, the last Scottish standalone triple crown was tucked away before the second world war.

In 1938, as it happens, Scotland had a not dissimilar gameplan to 2023. A deliberately fast-paced game, designed around their brilliant fly-half, Wilson Shaw, worked a treat 85 years ago and history may be repeating itself. With White at scrum-half cranking up the tempo and his half-back partner, Finn Russell, exploiting that momentum, France could easily have lost in Paris last month.

To anyone who has seen London Irish play this season, it is simply confirmation of what they have been enjoying for a while. The 24-year-old’s buzzing energy and alertness has helped to propel them towards the playoff places and the attack-happy Exiles are arguably the most watchable team in the Premiership. If they and Scotland continue to run free it will not be a coincidence.

It could already be argued that White has been the tournament’s most influential nine, even before the head-first lunge in his direction by France’s Mohamed Haouas in Paris. Supplying Russell with red-hot quick ball remains his primary job, but, as his smart opportunist try at Twickenham underlined, he has also threatened around the fringes. Not bad for a player who before last month had never started a Six Nations game and was surplus to requirements at Leicester less than two years ago.

His exit from Welford Road, with two years left on his contract, was a sliding doors moment in many respects. The Tigers’ then