Opinion

Help us big man, we said, a phalanx of Scottish pressmen thrusting tiny arms under Romelu Lukaku’s bumfluffed chin. Straining with our microphones we didn’t think much of his beard but we were in awe of his football and that of his countrymen. In the bowels of Hampden, in the mixed zone, Lukaku loomed over us like Belgium had just loomed over our brave boys in dark blue, trouncing them by four to nil.

After penning the memoirs of KK Downing of Judas Priest as well as those of Brian Slagel, CEO of Metal Blade Records, naturally the next book you are going to agree to get involved with is… Michael Owen’s.

Neymar senior was in town last week speaking at a conference in Edinburgh. The star turn – well, one of them since Fabio Capello was also on the bill (as was, ahem, Neil Doncaster) delivered a fascinating talk at the city’s Signet Library on the complexities of looking after his famous son’s interests.

So, our squad has arrived in Japan after months, even years, of preparation, the players supported by a host of back-room staff. It was all very different at the first World Cup in New Zealand 32 years ago. Rugby was still an amateur game and preparation was amateurish.

Inot as bad as 2013, when the Scots became the first team in Europe to bow out of the equation for the World Cup finals the following year. Automatic qualification might not even be officially beyond them.

Their country is often pilloried for being the dullest on the planet. Google “Belgium + world’s most boring” and nearly 9 million results come back.

Rationality is an 
elusive quality within the wonderful world of Scottish football.

W ell, assuming all have come unscathed through last night’s return match with Georgia, it is passport-checking time for the happy 31, coaches, analysts and so on. Suddenly 22 September and the match against Ireland look very close. Meanwhile it is agreeable to step back in time and to remember, and reflect on, the days when rugby was a recreation for players and not a job or career.

The long absence of the senior Scotland side from major tournament finals, which will stretch beyond 22 years if they fail to qualify for the Euro 2020, is dismally well documented.

The mere mention of Connah’s Quay Nomads is liable to send a shudder down the spine of many within 
Scottish football.

It’s only words, the Bee Gees sang, and words are all I have. The ditty was a hit in 1968 when talk wasn’t so cheap, there was still something called the dignity of print, and football fans didn’t stay up until 3am in their underpants hammering away on social media with orange fingers, 
a consequence of consuming too many jumbo bags of cheesy snacks, just like that slob Al McWhiggin in Toy Story 2.

Now just two short of equalling the Scottish record for a Test half-back pairing, scrum-half Greig Laidlaw and, in particular, a dazzling display from stand-off Finn Russell, drove Scotland to this confidence-boosting dismantling of Georgia in Tbilisi last night.

Not having made the exact journey before, I stuck the two points into AA Route Master. Manchester United, the theatre of dreams, to Bury FC: 14.9 miles.

Secreted away in training complexes often far from the buzz of a town or city, some managers rarely encounter fans at all other than on matchdays.

It’s not as extreme a case as East Fife’s Henry Morris, who scored a hat-trick on his debut for Scotland against Northern Ireland in 1949 before, five weeks later, being dropped for the next match against Wales.

Anyone turning up or tuning in a few minutes late last Saturday and finding Scotland already 0-7 down might have been excused for muttering , “Same old Scotland, sleepy start – why do we take ten minutes to wake up?” Yet it wasn’t like that. We had actually started briskly and were looking lively, even dangerous, when Damien Penaud intercepted Peter Horne’s pass and ran half the length of the field to score. If Penaud had mistimed his move, the try might have been scored at the other end of the field.