Brian O’Driscoll says it's 'hard to argue' with Finn Russell's comparisons with Lionel Messi

Brian O’Driscoll says it is “hard to argue” with Finn Russell that he is rugby's Lionel Messi after the Scotland and Bath star’s tongue-in-cheek comment made headlines.

The fly-half starred in the opening episode of the ‘Six Nations: Full Contact’ documentary on Netflix this week, in which he jokingly made a comparison between himself and the Argentina football great.

Speaking ahead of Bath’s West Country Derby clash with Bristol Bears, live on TNT Sports, Ireland legend O’Driscoll gave his reaction to the Scot’s comments.

“Finn Russell was in the news during the week referring to himself as rugby’s Messi,” O’Driscoll said. “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.

“The thing is, there’s a packed house here today and so many people will be here to support Bristol Bears, so many people will be intrigued to watch Finn Russell, they will have player cam on him.

“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 for one 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.”

O’Driscoll went on to add that he believes it is in the interests of rugby union as a sport to celebrate the personalities and talents in the game, rather than bring them down.

Although it has been a turbulent year for English domestic rugby, with several Premiership clubs going bust, O’Driscoll thinks large attendances and quality players are among the reasons to be optimistic about the game.

“Sometimes we have to step back and say ‘alright we’ve got a good product here, we just need to self-promote a little bit’,” he said.

“And also, elevate our stars. Allow Finn Russell to call himself rugby’s Messi – why not?

“Because he is something really spectacular and we don’t know how many more years we’re going to have him for. We should enjoy him on occasions like this.”

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