David Johnston had been heralded as an interesting and insightful speaker and the GROGs were not disappointed. Outlining the 4 subjects he would cover - football, playing and coaching rugby and (possibly the most intriguing) the historic rugby governance in Scotland David promised “shameless name dropping” starting with Gavin Hastings then Gordon Strachan and Jimmy Johnstone, whom he had played against in his Hearts days, and many others. We had a whistle-stop tour of his career from playing rugby at school, captaining the Scottish Schoolboys team, his brief career with Hearts F.C. ending with a serious leg injury, before returning to rugby with Watsonians. The “Flying Ashtray”, as sports writer, Brian Meek, dubbed him, was home and his stellar career was about to start. From Watsonians to Edinburgh District and other representative sides and finally to his international debut against the All Blacks in November 1979, David gave an interesting description of highlights and memories of his halcyon rugby playing career before another injury forced a premature end. Still, 27 caps, a 1984 Grand Slam winning achievement and the best ever Scottish result against the All Blacks are not too bad highlights to look back on. Thankfully, his rugby career was not finished as he took up a fruitful coaching partnership travelling the rugby world with Richie Dixon, including the 1996 Jim Telfer “dry tour” of New Zealand (sponsored by The Famous Grouse) and the unsuccessful Grand Slam decider against England at the beginning of the professional era, the ‘Wild West time’ as David described, until parting company with the SRU in 1998. That led to him falling out of love with the playing side of rugby although he remained involved with the sport because of the continuing nonsense going on at Murrayfield. He described 3 types of committee members - incompetent enthusiasts, honest soldiers and highly political animals. In his opinion, the latter ruled the Murrayfield roost. David could think of only a few of the hierarchy who had advanced Scottish rugby more than their own standing and vested interests. The GROGs smelled blood! The lawyer in David chose careful words when describing a former SRU CEO in terms that were not glowing especially when mentioning a supposed “sweetie jar”, the Keith Russell affair and the introduction of the Super Six. Though he saw the past of Scottish rugby as bleak, he sees some brightness in the future. David cleverly fielded some astute questions before being asked to take ownership of a bottle of Famous Grogs whisky and our sincere thanks.