Finn Russell backed to handle Calcutta Cup flak as Scotland team-mate reveals why he deleted his social media

Smith was Scotland’s 24th man at Twickenham and watched from the bench as Russell missed with a last-gasp conversion attempt. England held on to win 16-15 and Smith acknowledged that the stand-off would be “an easy scapegoat” after missing all three of his kicks at goal during a game in which the Scots outscored their hosts by three tries to one.

The Glasgow Warriors player is no stranger to the vagaries of social media and has taken himself off X/Twitter after tiring of criticism from self-appointed experts.

“The beautiful thing about playing professional sport is that people who are not necessarily well studied on the game like to pick apart where the obvious errors are,” said Smith. “I think Finn is very good at dealing with that, and he’s very upfront: he should have got those kicks and he missed the kicks, so he can deal with that. I’m sure he’s absolutely fine.

“And I understand for the fans, they want us to win the game and they’re frustrated.”

Smith’s own experiences convinced him that remaining on Twitter was detrimental.

“For me personally it depends on the scenario,” he said. “If people are just calling you rubbish at rugby it’s a bit tough. If people are nitpicking and there’s usually no substance to it, it’s just random fans, they would probably be quite nice to you if they saw you after a game.

“I’ve deleted Twitter - my account is still there but I don’t have the app, because I just didn’t see it as being very beneficial. The mob is fickle sometimes, so I decided it’s best not to read that stuff.”

Smith is instead concentrating on re-establishing himself for club and country after a long-term knee injury which sidelined him for over a year. The comeback has seen him play at outside centre for Glasgow against Connacht and Dragons rather than full-back, his usual role. He has enjoyed returning to the position he used to play in his schooldays.

“I’ve got to learn a lot of new stuff. Defending set piece is probably the most different thing. Attacking is interchangeable, so it doesn’t really make a difference.

“But it’s been good. I think it’s quite good for me because it gets me into a game earlier. So you get carries or you can get tackles earlier, rather than, say, being a full-back and if you’re just defending for the first part, you’re just running around for the first 20 minutes and then maybe get caught out at some point.”

It emerged this week that Josh McKay has had surgery on an ankle injury he sustained against Dragons and the Glasgow full-back will be out for up to eight weeks which could see Smith revert to 15.

“We’ll see what the coaches decide,” he said. “Josh is a big loss. He’s played so much rugby over the last couple of years and was such an integral part of our success last year. To lose him at this time is pretty tough, especially with Steyno [Kyle Steyn] being out as well.”

Glasgow host Ospreys at Scotstoun on Saturday night in the URC.