Now, I'm all for free trade, but this Mark McKenzie thing is a strange one, and only the future will really tell us who has been right and who has been wrong.

The facts are that McKenzie didn't get his contract renewed with the districts because the selectors didn't think he was good enough. As simple as that. The last game I saw him play for Stirling County the team's supporters were shaking their heads as he struggled with his game.

Nowadays, to cut it in the big time of French club rugby you really have to be good enough, week in and week out. If you cast an eye to football there have been some footballers who have blossomed on the continent. Paul Lambert is the one that springs to mind, and John Collins is another.

Back in the eighties a lad called Peter Steven, of Heriot's, went out to play for Grenoble and ended up in the ''team of the week'', chosen by the rugby writers looking over all the sides in battle, on several occasions.

He was a full back or winger and was capped by Scotland.

After what McKenzie and his agent have said during the week I think he is under pressure to succeed in Bourgoin. Effectively they are saying that the SRU don't understand the value of some of our players, whereas the French do. McKenzie has youth, time and ambition on his side, and I hope he can come back to Scotland with success, rather than egg, all over his face.

But the matter does still arise as to exactly who is going to sign for districts next year, and who is going to sign for clubs instead. Hand on heart, I haven't heard a single person talk enthusiastically about these merged ''super teams''.

Those of you who have read my drivel in the papers for a while know that I have always thought the French system is the one we should be imitating, with each team, as far as I can see, called after a town like Begles, Narbonne, Brive, Toulouse.

The same happens in England with Newcastle, Bath, Leicester, and Bristol, and Wales with Cardiff, Llanelli, and Newport. When, oh when, will the clubs in places like Aberdeen, Dundee and Inverness realise the strength in this? Maybe then we wouldn't have a McKenzie going to Bourgoin.

q A week on Tuesday the Scots take on Fiji in Suva. Not only will they have to find their way intelligently avoiding head high tackles - and a roughness in strange territory they won't be fully expecting - but, much more importantly, the whole of Scottish rugby needs to find a new attitude, and a new team to take us into the future.

Be honest. See all the blokes who aren't going on tour? Well, we know what they can do. What they have done consistently for the last few years is lose on the international stage, sometimes catastrophically to the big teams.

For all that they might be superstars, or, as Jim Telfer might say ''media favourites'', the lads staying at home can either be viewed as the cream we need so badly to hang in with the best, or the very core of the problem. Men we think of as being great, but average against the best.

For instance, the list of those not going includes Gary Armstrong, Doddie Weir, Alan Tait, Peter Walton and George Graham, all from Newcastle.

Add to that practically all of the first fifteen, well that's the way it feels, and you get the picture of this tour party. Weakened, young, and inexper- ienced. In my view, the perfect blend.

Two things: Last summer I was in South Africa, watching the Scotland game against Northern Transvaal and ended up gobsmacked when the boys in blue won. It was a team of kids put in against one of the toughest teams in the world.

Secondly, the Scotland A team this year showed some of the mettle you need to win games against men with huge reputations.

Now for reality. The trouble with this tour is that the Aussies are on the back of their Super 12s and that, frankly, is of a level so much higher than any of our players will have experienced, and that includes players like Richard Metcalfe who ply their trade in the English permiership.

I can remember Derek Turnbull telling me after a tour to Australia that when he lined up against the first opponents he, and the rest of the team, couldn't quite believe the size of human beings facing them.

That's reality. Big, big men, in their own backyard, used to playing good rugby, are hard to beat. In gobbledygook football parlance, if Scotland come away with some results then it really will be a bonus.