AS an All Black, he won Test matches in South Africa, France, each of the four Home Unions in Graham Mourie's 1978 Grand Slam-winning side, and was part of the 1977 New Zealand squad that swept the British Lions aside. Yet, Brad Johnstone doesn't rate any of those nations as the most talented rugby playing race he has encountered.

''The Fijians are the most skilled people I've ever seen,'' he says. ''Drive around this country at 5pm and you'll see these guys running around with a rugby ball everywhere.''

It would seem then that Johnstone is in a dream job, given the chance to help that nation fulfil its potential, as coach to the Fiji national side. However, the frustration he feels in attempting to transform that ability and passion into a rugby power rises quickly to the surface.

It should have been a happy day for Johnstone yesterday. The sport had officially become professional on the island after a government injection of $22m to be spent on the national side. ''But,'' he explains, ''50% of our team have played no more than three or four proper games of rugby this year.''

The Scotland match was the beginning of a run of Tests which he hopes will prepare his side for success in the World Cup qualifying competition with the other Pacific nations, but Johnstone's immediate problem is the enemy within.

''Part of my difficulty as the country's XV-a-side coach is sevens,'' he says of Fiji's obsession with the abbreviated game. ''They play sevens for six months in the year and that really doesn't allow time to build their aerobic base, or their strength.''

Nothing could better exemplify his dilemma than the case of the man entitled to be considered Fiji's greatest ever sportsman, Waisale Serevi. The little genius has never truly demonstrated his capabilities in the full version of the game.

''In this country Serevi is a god,'' Johnstone admits. ''But all the spectators see is the three great runs he makes, not the seven bad kicks or the seven passes he throws away. The problem is that he can make more money playing sevens all around the world. However, he has made the commitment to us now, because he wants to play in the World Cup next year.''

Now that he is beginning to get some help in at least preventing further departures, he clearly believes that the potential is near limitless. ''These boys are capable of getting into the top 10 in world rugby right away,'' he believes.

Meanwhile, from the Scottish camp came a hint yesterday that financial constraints, rather than rugby considerations, had affected their tour planning.

SRU officials had strenuously denied earlier this month that cost had been a factor in the decision to drop a meeting with South Australia in favour of a fourth match in the Sydney area. Yesterday, however, manager Arthur Hastie acknowledged that money had affected the decision to take only 22 players to Fiji, leaving 13 others behind in Australia.

''There are financial restrictions here and elsewhere,'' he said. It could be seen as a response to a slightly frivolous suggestion that it might have been better to have all hands on deck. Yet Hastie had previously acknowledged a danger for morale in such splitting of the squad.

Coach Jim Telfer had argued for that division, based upon the success of last year's raid by the British Lions' second string upon Orange Free State between the first and second Tests.

Yet there is a huge psychological difference between the situations.

The Lions left behind those guaranteed places in the Test squad on a tour where all involved had already had the chance to impress.

Those Scots still in Australia awaiting their colleagues' return had missed out on Test selection and already knew themselves to be playing catch-up on this tour.

Of yet greater immediacy than the impact upon the squad's collective psyche, however, could be the concern that, in committing themselves to 22 men, Scotland might be living on the margins.