KENNY MILLER said on Friday that Scottish footballers are sometimes too honest for their own good. He was talking about diving. Or the supposed lack of it in this country. The Scots don't tumble, he argued. Pure as the driven snow, the lot of them. The falling over? Those lads on the Continent are to blame. Johnny Foreigner – all his fault.
"It's part of the game on the Continent. How many times do you see a team come to Scotland and they go down easily? We maybe should be the same, but it's not in our make-up."
Sometimes you wonder if footballers live in the same world as the rest o
f us. "Not in our make-up," says Miller. Then how does he account for his team-mate Kyle Lafferty's dive against Aberdeen last season, one of the classics of the genre? What does he say about Kris Boyd's obvious attempt to win a penalty by plummeting in the box against Queen of the South on Wednesday evening?
That's just two examples. There are many, many others from Ibrox and Celtic Park and Tynecastle and Easter Road and every other ground where football is played in Scotland. Not in our make-up? Does Miller think we don't have eyes in our head? Does he think we cannot see what is going on out there?
"There is too much getting made of the diving thing to be honest with you," he argues. "At the end of the day you have to dive in certain situations or you are going to get hurt."
Ah, diving to avoid injury. An old chestnut.
"Sometimes it might look like you are diving to gain an advantage or a penalty, but in most cases you are trying to avoid a tackle which could potentially hurt you. That's the way it goes."
Of course. That'll be why players fling themselves down theatrically in the penalty area, like Shakespearean actors plunged in the heart with a dagger. They're not cheating. They're just wanting to avoid getting kicked. So why then, in cases where there is no contact, don't they get off the floor and tell the referee instantly that there was no foul? Why, when a referee points to the penalty spot, and an attacker knows he has won the award under false pretences does he not walk to the whistler and say: 'Sorry, ref, I wasnae touched there by the way'?
"I watched Aiden McGeady getting sent off for diving a few weeks ago and it was quite clear he didn't dive," says Miller. "If every player was to stand and take every tackle that came into them then they would be injured every week. There are certain times when you have to jump or dive to evade a tackle for your own safety."
But there was no tackle on McGeady. There was no contact of any kind. So Miller is saying that players are justified in jumping or diving to avoid tackles that are not actually made? So he's saying that the Eduardo thing was OK, then? If McGeady was OK, then so was Eduardo, right? The Croatian, with his history of injuries, could legitimately argue that he thought Artur Boruc was going to nail him – so he dived.
Or is it one rule for the dodgy continentals and another for the honest Scots? Miller's views are a little contradictory on that one, but of one thing he is certain: "I've never been someone who goes down in the box. It's not something that comes into my head."
Never? Never ever? Not even once, Kenny? It's not even entered your head to take a dive? In that case, you are unique among strikers. You are on a pedestal, Sir. The champion of fair play. The standard-bearer for all future generations. The patron saint of purity on the football pitch. They'll be erecting statues to you around the world. They'll start referring to you as He and Himself. Your days as plain old "wee man" will be over. Errant footballers will be sent to worship in the hope that your innate goodness can help cleanse them of the disease of simulation.
All you've got to do, Kenny, is make it through the rest of your career without looking to win a soft penalty at any stage. Should be no problem. After all, there's no diving in the SPL, right?
SO GEORGE Peat thinks that the upcoming friendly against Japan is a test of the players' support for George Burley as manager. That is what the president trotted out last weekend. Peat said that if the international players don't turn up en masse for the trip to Yokohama then their absence might be taken as a lack of faith in Burley.
On Planet Peat, perhaps.
George, do you not remember what happened the last time Scotland went to Japan? Shaun Maloney, then the player of the year, Stephen McManus and David Marshall didn't make the trip because their club wanted them to play in two testimonials in Manchester and Newcastle.
Barry Ferguson wasn't on the plane either. Neither were a heap of others. Scotland's team that day in Saitama in May 2006 included Russell Anderson, Graeme Murty and Scott Severin. Lee Miller and Chris Burke came off the bench. Iain Turner and Jamie Smith were in the squad.
Players withdrew for all sorts of reasons, some valid, some not. Nobody saw it as a slight to Walter Smith, the manager. Nobody saw it as a slight to Craig Brown when he was manager on the occasion of Scotland's previous visit to Japan. He was without a raft of regulars in Hiroshima in May 1995 – Colin Hendry, Stewart McKimmie, Paul McStay, Gary McAllister, John Collins, Tom Boyd. Instead, Brian Martin and Rob McKinnon started and Paul Bernard came on as a sub. Between the three of them they went on to win another one cap.
Withdrawals happen. Especially in friendlies on the other side of the world. The timing of this one is a lot worse than the last two, so they'll be dropping like flies in the coming weeks. Scott Brown already looks like he's out. If you were the manager of Rangers or Celtic and you're in the midst of European competition would you let your best players disappear to Japan for a meaningless friendly? Hardly.
Given the timing of it, if Burley can manage to get 11 players on the plane he'll be doing well. As for Peat, they shouldn't let him anywhere near Japan. Given his propensity for daft statements the mind boggles at what he might come out with there.
