WELL, all the conjecture is over - Andy Robinson has named the 30-man Rugby World Cup squad to travel to New Zealand. It's up to the 30-players and the more than 20-strong off-field team now.
They are certainly under pressure. Scotland expects, at the very least, a last-eight place - and when you consider that, on-paper we are only the third-rated side in our five-team preliminary group, that isn't going to be easy.
But, we are on a roll, we've won our last three games on the bounce and need not fear Argentina and England, indeed, without 80,000 Barbour-clad "Hooray Henries" harrumphing behind them, with the whole of New Zealand, not to say the rest of the world, digging away at them and with their own over-excited and over-demanding press playing their part, I fancy that an England squad, some of whom believe their own publicity, will fall apart and are very beatable.
But, we MUST pray for the continued good health of "Chunk" Jacobsen, hope that the line-breaking Lamont brothers can learn peripheral vision and agame-awareness and that we do not rue the absence of Johnnie Beattie.
We can, at least, make the quarter-finals. We will be the New Zealand public's "second team" - go fot it lads.
BACK home, the club game finally gets serious this weekend, with the first league matches. This promises to be a very interesting season, with the clubs vying for truly national status come 2012-13.
Over the last few seasons it has effectively been a three-horse race at the top: Ayr, Currie and Melrose being the big three. But, their success has come at a price, with several of last season's big club players moving up to the full-time professional game.
I watched Ayr being humbled by London Scottish on Friday night at Richmond. Admittedly Kenny Murray's squad was somewhat shorn of bulk and experience, but, they scrambled well in defence and caused Scottish some problems in attack.
Ayr are lacking in the front five, which is new, but their new new, more-expansive game, just might catch the rest out.
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