He’s the ‘Messi of rugby’ who earns (much) more than Suaalii. Can he stop the Wallabies?

The Wallabies call him “an absolute maverick”. He calls himself “the Messi of rugby”. And his bank manager calls him “Sir”, given he is one of the three highest-paid players in world rugby, with a salary that even puts Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii in the shade.

“Finn Russell, he’s pretty special, everyone in world rugby knows that,” Wallabies halfback Nic White said.

Russell, the star Scotland five-eighth, shapes as the main roadblock for the Wallabies’ ability to keep their grand slam dream alive with a victory at Murrayfield on Monday morning (AEDT).

He can’t do it alone, of course, and Russell’s partnership with Melbourne-raised Scotland captain Sione Tuipulotu will not only be influential, but likely give an early peek at the British and Irish Lions’ 10-12 combination for next year. Russell was on the last two Lions tours.

Russell is not your dour Scotland playmaker from central casting. The 31-year-old is a lethal attacking player, with a superb skill set and a gambler’s instincts, and he has developed major star status in the northern hemisphere.

Finn Russell on the attack against the Springboks earlier in the month.Credit: Getty Images

Russell recently returned from the Top 14 in France to play for Bath in the English Premiership, on a reported salary of $1.95 million a year. The highest-paid player in the world is believed to be New Zealand’s Richie Mo’unga on $2.3 million a year in Japan, but Russell and former England No.10 Owen Farrell (who replaced Russell at Racing 92) are on the next step.

South Africa’s Cheslin Kolbe and Faf de Klerk are reportedly next on the list and, based on available reports, Suaalii’s reported salary of $1.6 million would put him the 5th-8th bracket with Maro Itoje, Siya Kolisi and Dan Biggar.

Russell is a headline grabbing star for Scotland and in a recent Netflix series on the Six Nations, he labelled himself the “Messi of rugby”.

It was a tongue-in-cheek line but Irish legend Brian O’Driscoll said soon after it wasn’t far from the truth.

“It’s hard to argue with him to be honest with you. If you had to pick someone, I wouldn’t be shying away from it. I know he said it tongue-in-cheek,” O’Driscoll said.

“It’s the orchestrating, biding his time, finding the right moment, but then creating this spark of magic. He has lightning in his skill set and I always love coming to any rugby match that he’s involved in because you know something positive or negative will happen – but more often than not it’s positive these days.”

Asked how the Wallabies had to do to stop Russell, White said: “You don’t. Quite simply, you don’t stop a guy like that.”

Finn Russell on the break against Australia in 2017.Credit: PA

“What you can do is try and limit his options, try and limit his impact on the game, but it’s impossible to take out world-class players like that out of a game,” White said. “He’s just that classy and they’ve got a number of guys like that in their side.”

White also praised the Scottish forwards and Tuipulotu, the former Junior Wallaby and Rebels centre who left Australia and now plays for Scotland under the heritage of his grandmother.

“He is bloody hard work stopping him, isn’t it? He’s a triple threat. He’s playing some outstanding footy,” White said.

But White was also quick to qualify that the Wallabies were keeping an inward focus this week, after coach Joe Schmidt stripped away the lingering good vibes of the Wales win in brutal review sessions.

“Joe’s very good at reminding us we’ve still got a long way to go,” White said.

“There’s some good things we did, but there’s still a long way to go to be at the pointy end. This is just the beginning of our journey and it’s exciting.

“We’re in a period where we’re still evolving as a side and we’ve still got plenty of things to work on. Whilst we’ve got some good scorelines and some good results the last couple of weeks, there’s plenty we still aren’t happy with.”

Russell and Tuipulotu will be two of a number of players who’ll come back into Scotland’s side to take on the Wallabies, after being rested for the Scots’ 59-21 win over Portugal at the weekend. They were beaten by South Africa a week earlier, and comfortably downed Fiji a week before that.

Scotland had a mixed Nations campaign earlier in the year, with two wins over England and Wales, and three losses, including to Italy.

In a group of death at the Rugby World Cup with Ireland and South Africa, the Scots also missed the playoff stage. The Wallabies snuck home 16-15 in their last clash at Murrayfield at the end of 2022.

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