Well, possums, you have to admire the courage of Kevin McKenzie in saying that the Scottish team had been training too hard in their fair dinkum tour of Australia. Now, hand on heart, but it's been the accusation levelled against the SRU training regime for a long, long time that the training gets a little heated and a little hard at times.

The fact is that a few generations of Scottish players have gone onto the pitch with no gas left in the tanks, and even the Lions in the summer found it hard work in South Africa under Jim Telfer's steady gaze.

In fact, I was phoned up earlier this year by an agent of one of the players who said that the squad members felt they were having to train too hard and felt jaded by the whole experience.

Maybe they will take their collective feet off the gas as they prepare for the first really big game on Aussie soil, this weekend, against New South Wales.

q Sticking with the Aussie theme, Rod Hunter, of the Hillhead Jordanhill rugby club in the verdant west end, tells us of a very bizarre happening at his club towards the end of the season. It seems that they have a rather large, and different, Australian prop who ran screaming from the pitch at the end of the season asking for tape.

''What for?'' he was asked, as he never appeared to bind his ears - the use to which tape is most usually put. ''It's for my belly button!'' he shouted. It appears that in modern fashion belly buttons are pierced as fashion accessories, and the prop in question had been playing for some moments and forgotten about the lack of protection as his rugby jersey annoyed the offending article, and caused discomfort.

All this diary wants to say on the matter is that we must assume, if this habit is to expand to other parts of the body, that players may soon be requiring suitably tailored jock straps. A painful habit coming to the fore.

q Setting up some athletics for the radio programme on Saturday mornings, it's all go, and all sports, and one of the people looking after it is the redoubtable Vicky. She phoned the other day to say that we will be trying to get top Scottish sprint man, and former rugby player to boot, Dougie Walker, who has a very busy schedule. ''Mind.'' said Vicky. ''He'll be difficult to catch . . .''

q Top rugby laws man, and former international referee, Allan Hosie, tells the diary that the international board are looking at some laws.

''There is a moratorium until the World Cup.'' he says. ''But a few things remain interesting and I have written to other members of the committee to mention some aspects.'' Hosie is chairman of the laws committee, and two of the more worrying aspects of the game still remain padding under jerseys, and the tackle law. Hosie, and his team, still feel there are too many bodies lying around at the tackle situation, but reckon that the worry over padding has subsided.

The third aspect causing concern? Well, all the laws say at the moment when a penalty kick is being taken the defending players must stand still with their hands by their sides.

All very simple until you realise that Aussie leaper John Eales has made a habit out of standing under cross bars and, on very long kicks at goal, jumping up to knock the ball down as it slips over the bar. He can jump high enough to stop penalties from being successful. ''We may have to look at this.'' says Hosie.

Beattie hereby admits that he never, ever, jumped up to knock down penalties. Well, it would be breaking the law. Wouldn't it?

q Deeply honoured to have been invited by Clydesdale cricket club to play in a celebration cricket match signifying the fact that the club is now 150 years old. Dougie Donnelly, Jim Delahunt, Ken Bruce and Kit Fraser are also playing.

Looking back the club was formed in 1848 by a bloke from Hawick called Archie Campbell, and was created by the merger of the Thistle and Wallacegrove clubs.