Petitioners don’t know fly halves from tight heads - John McLellan

It’s been a good summer for Scottish Rugby, with packed concerts by Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen and Harry Styles at Murrayfield, and 48,000 wasn’t a bad crowd to watch Manchester United put squad players in the shop window for the likes of Bolton Wanderers or Barrow to browse.

Ruth Davidson has been appointed as a non-executive director of Scottish Rugby Limited (Picture: Lisa Ferguson)

And with three nights of Taylor Swift next year, Scottish Rugby is trying to make the most of its main asset, the Murrayfield Stadium, although that’s not without access issues for nearby residents not used to that number of big events out of the rugby season.

There are many challenges for Scottish Rugby as it seeks to grow the business and support the sport’s development.

But it seems the threatened boycott by Nationalists enraged by the appointment of Ruth Davidson as a non-executive director of Scottish Rugby Limited, which is responsible for commercial performance, is not one of them.

There might be 13,000 signatories to a petition calling for her removal, but I rather doubt many of them know their fly halves from their tight heads, and I have it on reasonably good authority that the number of known customers contacting Scottish Rugby to say they will never darken Murrayfield’s doors until she is gone amounts to precisely three. And one of them called back the next day to say he might have been a bit hasty.

If there is a loser, it’s the independence movement by association with such a nasty little campaign, and if none of them trouble Murrayfield’s turnstiles they will do real supporters a favour.