THIS could be a big weekend for Scottish Rugby. I will be in front of the TV tonight, willing Glasgow to win at Connacht and thus do their bit in securing a crucial home venue for their Pro12 semi-final; whilst across at Murrayfield there will be tears, not least from relieved referees, as Chunk Jacobsen bids farewell to the professional game.
I must admit, Richard Bath, a man who is to rugby-writing and journalism in general as much use as a chocolate fireguard, in a rare moment of lucidity this week, perhaps forecast the scenario at the Showground tonight: speculating on Dan Parks snatching defeat from the jaws of victory from Glasgow with an 81st minute dropped goal. Please NO!
I prefer to think that Glasgow will win, but the Welsh regions will come-up with a stitch-up to deny them home field advantage, as the Americans call it.
WE WILL miss Chunk next season. Not on the top step of Scottish props by any means, never a Smith, Sole or McLauchlan, but a guy who really relished pulling on the dark blue jersey and never gave less than 100%.
Chunk wore his heart on his sleeve - he was the Scotland fan on the park and he deserves all the praise and accolades he has received this week. I can see him, like David Rollo before him, years after the international caps stopped coming his way, happily wrecking havoc as he played away for fun down the XVs with his club.
Playing Preston Lodge might be painful fun, if, as I suspect he will, Chunk retires to Pennypit Park to play for fun.
BILL Young, with Laurie Duff and Jock Waters a member of the outstanding back row which played no small part in "Wilson Shaw's Match", Scotland's marvellous Calcutta Cup win at Twickenham in 1938, was laid to rest this week, aged 96.
Medical studies plus a little bit of unpleasantness involving our German friends cost Young the best years of his career, but, he came through the War and won further caps in 1948, before becoming a medical missionary in East Africa.
Young led the fledgling East African Rugby Union team, "The Tuskers" on their first tour, to Stellenbosch, in 1950.
That Tuskers touring party - to a man "white settlers" was the fore-runner of the Kenyan squad which is in action at Scotstoun this weekend. Rugby is apparently a good fall-back for those Kenyans who don't have it to make a living on the athletics tracks of the world and they have certainly been making waves on the Sevens circuit of late.
Sevens is the future of the game; just watch it explode after the Rio Olympics give it genuine global exposure - let's hope the SRU can come up with a workable strategy by then, it would be a shame if the nation which invented the short form of the game was left behind by global developments.
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