Shurely Shome Mishtake Moneypenny

I AM occasionally still asked why I refer to our soon to depart Great Leader as – TCD. For newer followers of these ravings, those three letters stand for “That Cunt Dodson”a title the grate man collected, from the Guardian Group's National Union of Journalists' Chapel (Union branch) when he worked there.

This season's Guinness Six Nations should have been TCD's farewell tour, prior to him sailing off into the sunset to either live off his ill-gotten pension pot, or, perhaps inflict pain and mayhem on some other body. However, I understand he is currently recovering from elective surgery in hospital, and unlikely to be back before his due retirement date. In that case, I do wish him a speedy recovery to full health.

But, being TCD, he seemingly had no intention of going quietly into that dark night; as witness the SRU's crazy decision to demand an apology from World Rugby, for the way the match against France ended so badly for Scotland.

That daft decision had TCD's fingerprints all over it; although we may suspect his faithful Indian companian Tonto, aka “Howzat”- the Consigliere's consigliere, penned the actual missive.

Look, we all know, referees and TMOs are only human and, as humans prone to error. In sport, shite happens – usually to Scotland, so, you might think we would be used to getting shafted. So, we ought to know by now, the game is over, the game's rulers are not going to say: “Well actually, Scotland won, so we have to make amends.”

What the SRU should have done is said: “Ok, the referee and the TMO made a mistake and we suffered. The thing is World Rugby, we will take the blow, but, in return, we are telling you – if you ever try to roster either Nic Berry or Brian MacNeice to a game involving an SRU team, we will not turn-up. Then stick to that decision.

They might add: “We were shafted by Craig Joubert in 2015, now this; before quoting an Ian Fleming line from Goldfinger: “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time is enemy action.”

THE CALCUTTA CUP match is still over one week away, but, already the mind games have started. In Wednesday's Guardian we had George Ford getting his retaliation in first, and warning England to be ready for Scottish “niggles” when the action gets underway on Saturday week.

Methinks the self-styled Rugby Master Race are a tad worried about facing us. Well who can blame them, since we've developed the habit of beating them in recent years.

I must admit, I think, for all the current squad isn't a great English collective, we will need to up our game significantly to beat them. However, I remain confident, if we can play for longer than the 40 or so minutes we have managed in each of our outings this Six Nations, then we will have enough to see-off our guests.

But, call it learned behaviour, I am never entirely comfortable when we go into a game against England as favourites.

IN A RARE departure from wall-to-wall coverage of Scottish Football's Bigot Brothers, BBC Shortbread this week did a story on Jim Carswell finally receiving his retrospective cap, nearly half a century late.

I covered big Jim's playing career with Old Grammarians, Renfrewshire, Ayrshire and Renfrewshire, Jordanhill and Glasgow. He was a formidable competitor, but a great guy to know back then, so I was delighted to see him finally get the tasselled bunnet.

As a former Sports Editor of the Paisley Daily Express, this was one story I would love to have covered, although I fear, whoever is in the hot seat these days might not have noticed Jim was a Grammarian. It was a nice touch to get his former team mate, Richie Dixon – another of the good guys – to present the cap to Jim at the Cheltenham care home where he now lives. The picture shows Jim with his family after the ceremony.

Best comment, however, came from a former “sparring partner” of Jim's, who, while delighted to see his old opponent honoured, couldn't help adding, tongue in cheek: “It's an unfair world when a waste of space like Carswell gets a cap, and I didn't.”That's as Scottish a compliment as you could wish for.

I HAVE NOT been on the SRU's approved list of media contacts for some time, since Buddy the Elf decided blogging wasn't real journalism, and bugger the 50-odd (some of them very odd) years of toil at the coal face which went before the fun of blogging.

Being permanently in the sin bin has its benefits – they cannot threaten or attempt to control me, while I am free to cast an eye on what The Junta is up to. This involves trawling through the SRU website in search of juicy titbits, such as this, from yesterday.

To their credit The Junta publishes on their site, reports on the meetings of the three boards. OK, for commercial reasons, there are nearly always redactions on these, but, you still get a notion of what is ging on inside the Borg.

Except, I noticed yesterday, the last minutes of a meeting of the Club Rugby Board to be published were from August, 2023 – before the last AGM.

Six months of silence, what aren't they telling us, or are afraid to tell us? Just asking.

{I wrote that particular segment a couple of days ago – forward planning and all that. However, now the news of the cancellation of Super Rugby has broken, we can perhaps imagine just what the members of that particular Board were talking about, and didn't want us made aware of. The thing is Super Rugby had nothing to do with Club Rugby, it was run by the Performance Department.

Why should the Club Rugby Board be able to discuss terminating Super Rugby, when the six franchises didn't have representatives on that board? Just another SRU fuck-up.]

I THINK we can now accept that oor ain Hollie Davidson is the premier woman referee on the planet – and, let's be honest, there are one or two ladies, not just Hollie, out there who are very-good at their job.

I honestly believe Hollie will shatter the glass ceiling and regularly get to referee Tier One internationals at the highest level.

She has, naturally, been allocated games at the upcoming Guinness Women's Six Nations. Hollie will referee: Ireland v Italy and Wales v France, well done. However, she will have Scottish company, Hollie will be AR1 and Chelsea Gillespie will be AR2, with Andy McMenemy as TMO for the Ireland v Wales match, which will be refereed by England's Sara Cox.

Chelsea will also be AR2 for Wales v England and Big Andy will be in the TV truck for France v England. Well done to all three.

FINALLY – it's not only the Welsh who are facing revolt in the grass-roots. Some doubtless Barbours and red trousers-wearing “Nigels” are up in arms after being unable to take alcoholic drinks to their seats at Twickenham on Saturday. They had been seated in the experimental “alcohol free”section of the ground.

These “fans” are threatening to sue the RFU. Quite right too, imagine being asked to watch England without the crutch of alcohol – that really is too-much.