Dell Has His Number - Will Finn Be next>

EVEN if he does not get onto the park again, Scotland prop Allan Dell has done it. His nine minutes or so on the park against the Chiefs, in Hamilton today, saw the Edinburgh loose-head become Lion #834. Congratulations Allan – ignore those who carp. You have been there, done it and got the shirt. And, in his first scrum, the Chiefs were shunted several metres backwards.

Allan Dell - Lion number 834

We Scots can now hope that, against the Hurricanes next week, Finn Russell gets his deserved Lions' number.

The way Dell, Finn and the four Welsh lads were called into the Lions's squad has caused a bit of a stooshie on social media, and in the BTL (below the line comments) section of media websites.

Of course, most of the protesting is coming from nglish fans – who, in all probability will never be happy with the Lions, until they wear white shirts with a red rose and select only English-qualified players. You know, they type of person who believes Britain a British actually mean England and English.

The Sassenachs were roaring for Dylan Hartley, Joe Launchbury, George Ford and sundry other Englishmen to have been summoned from Argentina to New Zealand. I did, I must admit, like the comment from a Welshman, in today's Guardian, who suggested – if Gatland had summoned six Englishmen, on the basis of being English, they were superior, sat them on the bench, while England, minus them, had lost to Argentina – how much shit would have hit the fan. Good point boyo.

MEANWHILE, in Suva, the remaining Scottish players will be preparing themselves to face Fiji. After the expected win – albeit in difficult conditions – ovr the Italians and the unexpected win over the Australians in Sydney, we should beat the Fijians, even if they have home advantage.

However, without Finn Russell or Alex Dunbar, we could struggle. And, let's be honest, those of us who have long experience of Scotland teams, in both football and rugby, are well aware, it would be typically Scottish to trip-up in what many might see as the easiest of the three Tests on-tour.

Leone Nakarawa - will want to beat his old pals

Let's hope this new aura of expansive Scottish rugby continues and we get the win we all want in the early hours of Saturday morning. But, be under no illusions, messrs Matawalu and Nakarawa will be particularly keen to beat Scotland.

COACHING qualifications are something of a disputed area in a few sports. In football, for instance, the great Johann Cruyff was unable to coach in his native Holland for a time, because he lacked the requisite coaching certificates. I know, seems strange, but, great players do not always make great coaches, partly because, they occasionally have difficulty working our quit why, something they find as automatic as breathing, proves extremely hard for some players to do.

Coach education and qualification is a comparatively new part of sport, and there remain a lot of opponents of coaching, people who cannot understand that you can teach people to teach others – something which has been commonplace in the much-more-important field of education, for instance, for over a century.

If it works in the class-room, why not also on the sports field. So, congratulations to the likes of Glasgow assistant coach Kenny Murray, Heriot's Phil Smith an the other rugby coaches who this week received their UKCC Level Four certification from Napier University.

Hong Kong's Andy Hall, Heriot's Phil Smith and Glasgow's Kenny Murray - all now, officially, Bloody Good Coaches

Others, Under-20s coach John Dalziel and Club Coach of the Year Calum Forrester of Ayr are well along the road to getting their Level Four certificates, so, we are not short of good and well-qualified coaches in Scotland.

Just a question – do they get letters after their name? Kenny Murray BGC for instance, has a ring to it. The BGC stands for Bloody Good Coach, by the way.