It's very simple if you think about it

If, as Duncan Paterson says, the SRU should be busy enough just administering the international game and shouldn't have to worry about running other teams, then the very fact that they have said that they want to franchise the sides is an indication that the financial drain is too much.

Face facts, the rugby world has changed. The SRU have created the two super clubs for Europe. I have hardly met a person outside the SRU who really thinks that what we are seeing in Scotland is completely right for rugby.

It's what we've got, we should support Scottish sides, but if it's wrong then it must be changed in time for next year.

If the SRU is creating two clubs, then why weren't the clubs allowed to try to do that for themselves? And is two teams really the limit of our Scottish ambition? But to paint the SRU as some of demonic organisation with no brains is idiotic. Stupid? No. Destroying rugby on purpose? No. Wrong sometimes? Of course. Able to change? I think so.

At the evening with Max Boyce on Thursday, Gordon ''Big Broon from Troon'' Brown gave Brian Simmers of the Hawks a thumbs up.

''I hope you are successful in what you are doing,'' said Broon, implying much but saying nowt. Simmers told Glasgow Caledonia's team manager, David Jordan, that he had ''real worries'' about the way the game is heading. I had some quiet words with Max Boyce before the dinner, in his room, when he too worried about the way rugby is going. He admitted to being ''Old rugby'', in the same way as there is old and new Labour.

I'm not old rugby. The game moves on, and while football buffs bleat, the reality is that their game is expanding hugely and is big business.

Gavin Hastings, a good guy in all of this, talked jokingly about ''promoting two teams with such rich heritage and history'', and had a go at me for saying the marketing of the super teams has been poor. Gav markets one of the sides and said he wasn't ''the enemy.'' Gav's a rugby lover.

Simmers and John Frame, the former Gala and Scotland centre, were locked in a bidding war for a Bill McLaren commentary sheet, which Simmers won. ''It's going in the Hawks club house,'' said Simmers. ''And there will be a Hawks club house.'' All rugby people saying things to other rugby people in the context of conversation, and often with humour. Interesting, but hardly devastating. But David Johnston, now he was devastating.

Like an exocet missile, the former Scotland coach made an attack on the SRU this week that came with stealth and intelligence, and it was designed to create maximum damage. Having known David for some time, I would say he is intelligent, thoughtful, deep, quiet, sometimes confusing in his ruthlessly obtuse arguments, but above all credible. David Johnston is credible.

If David Johnston, a rugby lover, former Scottish player, partner in a legal firm, and a rugby

thinker, says that the SRU is rotten, and has

partly destroyed rugby, then he won't be all wrong.

You see, to slag him off as just bitter and twisted is to display a lack of understanding, but above all a lack of rugby intelligence. I read David's quotes in the papers. They weren't quotes for crying out loud, he had written them. ''It had to be done carefully,'' he said to me this week. David Johnston believes in his cause.

David also believes in timing. Just as we are about to see the super teams go into action, then DJ hits the papers with maximum effect. Johnston's call for the SRU to change is superbly timed. Like a bullfighter stalking a bull he is seeing his prey wounded, bleeding, and vulnerable.

What is going to happen?

I sincerely hope that there is discussion, and evolution, and accord.

Can I close by asking you one simple question: Do you think our super teams, Glasgow

Caledonia Reds and Edinburgh Reivers, last forever? Think on that, and then ponder on the solution.