Il Nuovo Postiglione - Russell frustrated by Scotland's latest failed Six Nations title bid

The Scots have never finished higher than third since winning the last Five Nations in 1999 and successive defeats by Ireland, the reigning champions, and England have put paid to their hopes of title glory this season with two games left to play.

Scotland's 16-15 loss at Twickenham a fortnight ago was especially agonising as they outscored England three tries to one only for Russell to miss all three conversion attempts.

Russell, speaking ahead of Saturday's fourth-round clash at home to Wales, said that was an example of the "small margins" costing Scotland dear, with the fly-half also citing a disallowed try against France last year.

"I look at last year when we weren't given that try against France, that put us out of title contention and then against England the other week... it's such small margins at this level," Russell told reporters.

"As a team, we need to get better. It sounds simple, doesn't it? When we do get chances, we need to take them and have that ruthless edge that a lot of people talk about, but it's tough to actually do."

The Bath No 10 added: "I've been here quite a few times now and it's the same kind of story. It's tough, it's slipped away now so the best thing we can do is have a good game this weekend against Wales, hopefully get the result, then go to France and hopefully get the result over there.

"I know it's tough that we can't win the tournament now, but we've still got to finish this on a high leading into the summer, then next year's Six Nations.

"When we can't win the tournament, we have to then try to build and learn from what we've done in the last few games. I don't know the answers. If I did, we'd probably not be in this situation."

Russell's poor goalkicking display against England led to questions over whether the gifted playmaker should be the British and Irish Lions' starting No 10 in Australia later this year.

"I'm not too stressed about what's been said about my game," the 32-year-old Russell insisted. "For me personally, I was looking at my game and how it was. As long as I'm happy with it myself, that's all that matters."

A.Rastelli--INP