That growth formula was part of a speech delivered by Iain “The Bear” Milne to Lismore members and guests at a dinner to mark their club’s 125th anniversary and later the 44 times capped Scotland prop and British and Irish Lion elaborated on his ideas. 

“I am driven purely by trying to get more people playing club rugby” said the Heriot’s legend, adding: “To do that largely means cutting back on travel which affects player commitment and is also proving costly. 

“This won’t go down well everywhere but I’d scrap the national leagues below division one and create a structure of regional leagues with club 2nd XV’s taking part. 

“At the moment reserve sides play in a country-wide competition.” 

Such a system where reserve teams play in the local leagues of other sports already exists and Milne added: “You would be amazed how many players are happy to train on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then call off on a Saturday because they are unwilling to travel.  

“Having 2nd teams playing in the regional leagues could mean, for example, Lasswade, Linlithgow, Haddington or Dunfermline etc versus Heriot’s 2nds and that would raise the overall standard whilst the ambitious still have scope to improve themselves with promotions. 

“Of course, any 2nd team’s promotions would have to have a ceiling short of the premiership. 

“At Heriot’s we had a situation recently where players could not afford the time to travel to Melrose on a Saturday while bus costs for these sorts of trips are increasingly prohibitive anyway.  

“As for the number of subs on duty, a reduction from the current seven to three would probably mean more uncontested scrums but I’d live with that and teams abusing the rules would soon be found out.  

“That frees up players to turn out at a lower level, and I would also request the SRU to pay cash incentives to clubs running 2nds and 3rds. 

“For the best part of 50 years there has only been tinkering with the club rugby structure in Scotland and because there would always be a tendency to vote for the status quo, I’d set up a (separate) committee to come up with a radical structure for the next 20 years. 

“Imagine with more regionalisation there would be more local derbies, a better atmosphere and fuller clubhouses. That can only be a good thing?” 

Meanwhile the Milne family’s connection to Lismore was recognised at the dinner with mentions of Iain’s late brother David, also a Scotland internationalist, coaching the club in the late 1990s.