I don't understand tours undertaken by countries any more.
England are going to Australia and New Zealand. Ah, the beauty of being beaten up there after a long season. Ireland are touring Australia and New Zealand too, Wales play South Africa at home and also go to New Zealand, while Scotland are off to Argentina.
As an accountant (yup, passed the exams as a and loved the job), my instinct tells me that this is really to do with money.
It allows rugby unions to profit by filling their stadia outside the usual Six or Tri Nations window.
We head for the southern hemisphere so that New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia come and play us in November. We all make money.
Add to all of this a , British and Irish Lions tours, and the explosion of , and I would argue that there is simply too much rugby for players to cope with.
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I'm scared I'm being biased here. Am I, because I am a former Glasgow captain, seeing out of one eye?
I don't want to get too heavy about this, but the contrast between and not for the right reasons.
The Ospreys soared round most of the rules; the Warriors found their powder well and truly soaked.
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There was an Englishman, an Irishman, a Scotsman, a Frenchman, a Welshman and an Italian...
For a bit of fun this week, let's pick our best; mine and yours. Who is your favourite player from each of the countries over the last 40 years?
I grew up in the 1970s and I am still watching great matches from the Five and Six Nations and marvel at the abundance of talent from all of the teams that have graced the field of play.
But how on earth do you choose from such a glittering array of stars?
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I worry a bit about sevens. I prefer 15-a-side rugby. .
In 1883 two Scottish butchers, Ned Haig and David Sanderson, stumbled on an idea to make money for their club, . They invited other teams to play a shortened version of the game with only seven players in each side. From 2016 it will be an Olympic sport.
As inventors they joined a list of Scots who gave us things like the TV, car tyres, antiseptics, golf, the decimal point, logarithms, marmalade, the tarmac road, raincoats, penicillin, the telephone, whisky, economics, and, of course, the US and Chilean fleets.
Only the Chilean navy got stuck in its particular part of the world, as the others have spread right across the planet.
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I was born in Borneo, spent my formative years swinging from the trees, and you might know me as an international rugby player, but now I'm off to London to give you my opinion on all things Olympic as part of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Scotland Sport Nation Olympic team.
