Russell says the row with Scotland is not about drink. “It’s about control, respect and trust on and off the pitch”

Finn Russell keeps returning to the point that this didn’t happen overnight. That what went down in the Scotland team hotel on a Sunday evening three weeks ago was more a tipping point than a flashpoint. The moment when a hitherto private conflict burst noisily and messily into public view.

Russell disputes the SRU’s drip-fed narrative of events that night, saying his “late-night drinking session” was actually a handful of beers and an 11pm finish. But what he really wants to talk about, and for people to understand, is what happened in the months, even years beforehand. If he doesn’t feel he owes anyone an apology, he does want to offer an explanation.

It starts – and, for now at least, ends – with Gregor