DAVID SOLE

The summer appears to be getting shorter and shorter if you are an international rugby player.

Only last weekend, the French clubs played out their cup final – with a Scot in each team, albeit only one in Gregor Townsend’s World Cup training squad.

Greig Laidlaw won’t be getting much time at home in the run up to the tournament in Japan later this year.

The Scotland squad headed north this week for the first of their trips around the country during the summer and the preparation will have been well thought through.

Warm-weather training in Portugal in a few weeks’ time, followed by a spell at St Andrews in the run up to the four warm-up matches at home and away against France and Georgia.

It is a far cry from preparation in the amateur era of bygone years.

For one thing, before overseas tours or World Cups, players were stopped from playing. You were banned from any serious contact for four to six weeks before departure, lest you pick up an injury.

If you had a match to play, you had to ask for permission from the SRU – as I experienced in 1987 before the very first Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.

I gained consent to play in the John Player Cup final which, in those days, concluded the season in late April.

Quite a contrast to playing against France and Georgia on four

‘ Professional rugby is very different in the modern era

consecutive weekends this year – two of the most physical sides around.

Before the 1991 Rugby World Cup, Scotland had matches against the Barbarians and away in Romania, neither of which went entirely to plan. But they provided invaluable match practice to take away any rustiness that remained from the summer.

Clearly, professional rugby is very different in the modern era, and the attention to detail around both physical and mental preparation is a far cry from the first-ever World Cup more than 30 years ago.

Having said that, in 1991, Ian McGeechan began to introduce experts to help with the mental side of the game and the hotels were also instructed to provide the players with very specific food – something that the squad rebelled against one night in Edinburgh, disappearing into the city for a burger from a fast-food outlet, so bland and flavourless was the diet.

Gregor Townsend has a reputation for going the extra mile to have an edge over others, seeking input from other sports and different environments to apply them to rugby.

You can bet that no other Scottish squad will have been better prepared than Townsend’s come the flight to Japan in early September.

The real question will be whether they can turn that preparation into a series of performances to make the nation proud. Only time will tell.