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“It’s not dangerous, I swear,” says Finn Russell, with a cheeky smile as he juggles fire sticks in his backyard in Paris. It’s close to 10 at night. A dark night sky has fallen over the city and the swirling beam of the Eiffel Tower rushes overhead at a steady pace.
“This will make the flames bigger,” he says, dipping the sticks into a jar of white spirit that he fetched from the basement.
As with rugby, Russell makes it look easy. “I’ve been juggling for as long as I can remember,” he says, as flames lash across his face. ‘You start with clubs and then move on to fire. My dad taught me to do it.
Finn Russell insists his fire juggling trick, performed at his home in Paris, is “not dangerous”
Not content with the basic 1-2-3 technique, he attempts a sleight of hand trick that ends with a stray cane landing on the grass. Dad is better than me! he says. “I’m overthinking it, trying to get into my rhythm, it’s better when you do.”
A bit like rugby? ‘I suppose.’
His partner, Emma, watches from the living room. She just put her two-month-old daughter, Charlie, to bed. ‘Smile!’ she screams, before Russell does it not once, but twice. Rugby’s magnificent showman is in her element. ‘Do you want to go?’ she asks the reluctant crowd of hers, finishing the fuel before retreating inside to clear the dishes.
Bolognese is on the menu, served with a couple of warm baguettes. He pours a couple of glasses of red wine, Chateau Lafon Rochet, from the Racing 92 owner’s vineyard. Russell didn’t drink, though, just a pint of tap water.
‘Changed days! I can’t be doing that now that I’m a father. The Heineken machine is downstairs in the basement with the juggling pieces. The beer machine never worked that well, it came out too foamy anyway. I have changed it for a microwave to sterilize the baby’s things!
Russell, who is leading the Six Nations charge for Scotland, gave up alcohol after becoming a father
There’s a blackboard in the kitchen, covered in notes to record Charlie’s development. First smile, first words, first steps. In the next few days, Russell will leave his family’s home in Paris to join Camp Scotland. His first time as a father. He was left out at the end of last year’s Six Nations after breaking curfew by Gregor Townsend, having grown frustrated with the sport, but the number 10 will return with a new outlook on life.
“Everything changed quite a bit overnight after I found out Emma was pregnant. Maybe I was waiting for something serious like a baby to come along and give me a reason to settle down. She gave me a reason to change. Not necessarily grow, but take on more responsibility. Some may not agree, but now I am more responsible.
‘Before Covid, I would go out, have fun, make good money and spend a lot of money. If we had a big win, I would go crazy. If we’d lost, I’d be lifting my spirits by laughing and forgetting about it. I used alcohol to deal with different scenarios, without really knowing it. I couldn’t go out for two years during Covid and realized how much money I was saving. I didn’t really care before, because every month money was coming in. I don’t look back and I regret it because it was a lot of fun and I was playing good rugby, but now things are different.
“When I lived alone, I would just play PlayStation, order food and play PlayStation again. I would stay up playing PlayStation until 2am and then sleep until noon on my day off. PlayStation was just a way to lock things down. I was tired all the time, I gained weight, and things eventually catch up with you.
‘The times when things blew up with Gregor were when he was frustrated by the rugby side. My relationship with Gregor is better than ever; our lives have changed in recent years. I would go out for a drink as a relief because I never disconnected from rugby. Now go back and beat Charlie, or whatever job you need to do to help. Your mind is not on rugby all the time. You are looking for those reactions, a smile or a laugh, when you touch their hands or their feet. It is nice. The happier I am, the more I enjoy things off the pitch and the better I am on it.’
He says his relationship with Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend is ‘better than ever’
The conversation turns to the Netflix documentary on rugby. Cameras will follow Russell and his teammates throughout the Six Nations in a series premiering next year. Russell should be one of the stars of the show.
“The producer is probably saying, ‘Put a camera on that guy! Follow him around after the game and you’ll make him have a few pints in a bar somewhere!” he jokes. ‘They’ll be expecting great things and they’ll think they’ve got the wrong guy! I’ll be there eating Haribo and drinking Red Bull.
Seriously, it will be good for the sport. Look what he did for Formula One. Hopefully the audience will increase. I guess it depends on how much the teams let the cameras see. I’m happy they see what they want. Fans will want to see you celebrate a big win. They want to be behind closed doors and see all the work being done.
‘Some guys are different off the field than they are on the field. Some guys are a bit camera shy. Some guys love it. Hopefully the profile of the players will increase because rugby is still quite young on the promotional side. We just need the product in the field to be good too.’
All eyes will move to Twickenham next Saturday, when England host Scotland in the Calcutta Cup. Russell has been England’s enemy in recent history, winning three and drawing one of their five Tests during the Eddie Jones era.
Russell hoping to keep his good record against England despite his head coaching opportunity
“I don’t want to kid myself, but I haven’t lost to England in a long time,” he says. I have many good memories against them. A couple of bad ones. It’s always a great game with great emotion. We don’t know how England will play with Steve Borthwick as the new manager. I imagine they will be very different. We’re probably better off watching the Leicester games under Borthwick than anything from autumn. It will be interesting to see if they go with Marcus Smith and Owen Farrell together, or just one of them.
Russell’s time in Paris is coming to an end and he will move to Bath later this year, joining the Premiership club. A new beginning. He pulls the phone from him and opens the Rightmove app to show some of the houses he’s looking at. “This one has a putting green in the back garden,” he says. I’ll have to get Charlie to take up golf. We want one with three or four rooms to have a free room for when people come. My contract is for three years, so eventually Charlie will have his own room too.
At 30, Russell is nearing the twilight years. But he has a new lease on life, with no intention of hanging up his international boots after the World Cup. Family life has provided him with new inspiration and he has been working on a new app, which could launch during the Six Nations.
“I would like to play for Scotland as long as I can,” he says. ‘The World Cup is this year and the next one is Australia in 2027. I’ll be 35 then… who knows? Jimmy Gopperth is almost 40 years old and still playing. It’s not “One more contract and I’m done,” but I’m trying to fix things off the field, in case he has to stop early. Fortunately, I haven’t had too many injuries so I’ll keep going as long as I enjoy it.’
As for everyone else, enjoy it while it lasts, because artists like Russell don’t show up very often.
Russell plans to play for Scotland for as long as possible and will soon be moving his club days to Bath.