This little diary wonders, quite genuinely, if professionalism is going to widen the gulf between rugby nations, and split them into race and body types.

We Scots have survived in rugby, which is quintessentially a physical contact sport ideally suited to extremely fast and strong athletes with more than a hint of badness in them, because for a while now we have trained harder than most and devised a game style to counteract big people.

But just as there aren't too many Scottish, or English for that matter, 100-metre sprinters, or heavyweight boxing champions, or shot putt champions, or pole vault champions, or winners of any kind in the explosive stuff, then it really does begin to look as though there aren't going to be too many of the best in rugby.

The British version of the human body, and more specifically the small, dark Scottish version, is going to be surpassed by the bigger South Africans with their Dutch ancestry, the New Zealanders - where there is an outcry over the roughness of the schoolboy islanders compared with the whites - with their Maori and Western Samoan blood lines, and now the Fijians who could always rip us in a game of sevens but could never be bothered scrummaging or rucking. Now they can.

qOn a serious note, it was extremely sad to hear of the sudden death of one of the stalwarts of Marr rugby in Troon, Bob Paton.

Ironically, he died at a touch rugby tournament. I can't pretend to know Bob well, but like most people in the game in the west I knew who he was.

Bob was convenor of Marr mini rugby for eight years, and he was the kind of bloke who organised everything, and then swept out the changing rooms. Being born in 1952, to die in 1998, is far too short a life, but he lived it to the full and he will be remembered.

q The Watsonian dinner was huge fun on Friday night. Star turn came from captain Grant McKelvey who was proposing the vote of thanks on the eve of turning his back on the club game to concentrate on super team rugby. But he forgot to say thank you, there wasn't a vote, he slagged off Gavin Hastings - who was in the audience - and he looked to have the bottle for anything. Yes, he brandished a bottle during the speech.

Goodness me, what on earth is the east coast coming to.

q The Hawks dinner, by contrast but on the same night, was a civilised affair. Former Barlinnie governor Robbie Glen, and former world professional sprint champion George McNeil, were the speakers at the night put aside to celebrate the success of the current second division and Tennents Velvet Cup holders.

Held at a football ground on the south side called, I think, Ibrox Park, one of the most interesting lines on the evening came from Brian Simmers, who said that he wished the players well in the Super Teams, but insisted that the players progressing up the ladder were part of the Hawks, and so he regarded them as ''on loan'' to the SRU. He asked Ken Crichton of the SRU to look after them as he expected them back.

q Back to that sad result in Fiji. A lot of harsh things have been said and I'm one of the ones who have said them, but you have to feel for the players as they now will be trying to tell everyone that things are fine, the tour is still on track, and that the squad is ready for the big challenges which lie ahead.

The bad thing nowadays is that you have to sit and watch video footage of what's gone wrong. But, a bright side to all of this! The video machine in Fiji broke at the match, and so there will be no video nasties.

Let's sincerely hope that the tour gets back on track. To know how good it is to win you have to know how bad it is to lose.