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Watch: Russell sends 109kg France lock Woki flying backwards
By Josh Raisey
Finn Russell is known for many things, but massive tackles has never been one of them - on any player, let alone Test locks.
But the Bath flyhalf surprised everyone at the Rec on Sunday when he smashed Racing 92 lock Cameron Woki onto his back. The most surprised of all in the Investec Champions Cup encounter, however, was Woki himself, who clearly did not expect it from his former teammate.
Russell played alongside the France lock last season at Racing 92, where he probably did not build a reputation for producing hits like he did. The 109kg lock's eyes must have lit up when he broke through the Bath defence and saw the Scotland No10 rushing across the field to cover, but he produced a textbook tackle.
Ben Spencer did help Russell out slightly in this situation by slowing Woki down slightly, and preventing him to prepare for the hit from the Scot, and credit must also be given to the Frenchman for being able to keep the ball alive by popping it up from the floor. The camera panned to him soon after, where he could only smile in disbelief over what happened.
Watch the tackle here:
This short passage of play sums up how the Champions Cup encounter went- Racing looked very threatening at times and were able to carve through the Bath defence on a number of occasions, but the West Country outfit were able to stand fast and hold on to a 29-25 victory.
It was not only Russell's defence that stood out in this performance though, as he was pivotal in overturning a 22-8 deficit in the second-half as Bath kept their unbeaten record in Europe this season intact and secured their place in the knockout stages with a round remaining. Racing, meanwhile are winless this season, and must beat Cardiff this weekend and rely on other results to progress.
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Latest Comments
The boy needs to bulk up if wants to play 10 or 11 to handle those hits, otherwise he could always make a brilliant reserve for the wings if he stays away from the stretcher.
Go to commentsIn another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.
First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.
They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.
Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.
Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.
That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup
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