WHEN I was a schoolboy, back in the Golden Age of Scottish education - we still learned a lot of what "they" thought we should be taught, by rote. I can still see "Big Pit", my First Year Latin teacher, immaculate in his double-breasted, pin-striped suit, over six feet tall, gaunt - he never quire recovered from service as a Chindit in the jungles of Burma - beating time with a heavy ruler as he taught us basic Latin tenses: "Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, ament".
Nowadays, rote learning is frowned upon, to re-introduce it might harm today's little angels' precious infant psyches - but, in the world of sport, rotas, rather than rote are seen as the way to improve our over-paid, over-hyped, often over-rated, sports stars.
Thus, Scottie Johnson has rung the changes for Sunday's Murrayfield clash with the South Africans; so much for keeping changes to a winning team to a minimum.
In truth, I agree with the need to rotate the team, Scotland is hardly awash with top-quality talent and, with the Australians coming hard on the heels of the Saffers, he has to husband his resources as he sees fit.
I reckon, Scottie's thinking is: "The Saffers will beat us, but, we can beat the Aussies", and he is selecting accordingly. However, the still-fragile state of our internaitonal game was perhaps demonstrated by his decision to put-out a more-or-less full-strength team against Japan.
If ever there was a case for blooding newcomers, it was against the Japanese; but, Scottie fielded more big guns than many of us would have done, to be sure of a morale-boosting win.
So, a second-half introduction for Jonny Gray has been well flagged-up; the enigma that is Moray Low gets first crack at filling the huge hole left by Euan Murray's "Never on Sunday" stand, while Chris Cusiter will almost-certainly come off the bench and take-over the captaincy from Greig Laidlaw after around an hour.
I honestly don't see us winning this weekend, but, we can certainly beat the Aussies, so, if Johnson has called it correctly, good and well. However, should we surprise even ourselves and beat the Saffers - what a delicious headache Scottie has got for the following week.
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