THERE is only one thing more terrifying than Taqele Naiyaravoro. And that is saying Taqele Naiyaravoro on the radio.

The uttering of the winger’s name on BBC Scotland by me last week forced Peter Wright, the estimable former international prop and rugby analyst, to be glad he was sitting six feet away and wearing a pair of glasses with windscreen wipers.

It was marvellous to watch Naiyaravoro destroy the Scarlets at Scotstoun on Saturday. There are some eternal classics in sport: the football winger so small he does shifts for Subbuteo, the heavyweight boxer with an arm like Popeye after someone has said something inappropriate to Olive Oyl, and a left-handed batsman who makes every thing look easy, including getting caught at slip.

Big Naiyaravoro pounds in the footsteps of the late, great Jonah Lomu. He is not on that level yet, of course, but there was more than hint of nostalgia as he careered down the line on Saturday. This remembrance of things past was not restricted to recalling Lomu. It forced me to remember my rugby playing past. This was as brief as a pair of shrunken Speedos but much more painful to try on after an injury break from the oval game that has lasted a mere 45 years.

It was chastening to view Naiyaravoro. He is listed as 18st 2lbs but that is before he has his breakfast of cow pie with a side dish of deep-fried elephant lugs. My mate, who would find fault with a night on the batter in Vegas with Kylie, said to me: “He is not the quickest.” I could only reply: “If you want to see real pace, watch me running away from him.” We call my mate Tosser and not just because caber is his speciality at the Barlanark Highland Games.

Back to Naiyaravoro. He comes from a Fijian island that is only 20 miles square. He had to leave because when he lay down to sunbathe there was not even room for a German to put down a dish towel. He is that big. He is also quick, unstoppable with great hands. In short, he is like a fuel-injected tank covered in Velcro. Everything thrown to him on Saturday stuck, everyone in his way bounced off him. I had sympathy for the Scarlet defenders. I was once that soldier.

My rugby career lasted one season. But that is not to diminish the pain. It is akin to saying that one only had one’s one trapped in a zip for an hour. It was sair. The root of the problem was that I was too good for the second team. This sounds fine but it is merely a presage to disaster in rugby because they promote you to the first team. And I was not good enough for the first team. I was fine at the handling. I was good at the kicking. But I was also brilliant at being handled and absolutely top-class at being kicked.

That split-second afforded to me in the seconds disappeared on the first team. Nowadays there would be an intervention from a concerned social worker. Then there was the frankly uninterested PE (Psychopathic Enforcer) teacher and a very professional A&E department. All this was made worse by my trying to play football for the school on the same day. I received as much sympathy as Simon Cowell with pigeon droppings in his coiffured barnet.

I once turned up for the fitba' match and prepared to don my shirt when the lads noticed a bootmark in the centre of my chest. An opposition winger had decided that a sidestep would expend unnecessary energy. He just ran over me.

The best quote at the fitba' was from the PE teacher, who graduated with advanced sarcasm from the University of Psychosis. He said he admired my tattoo and would place a similar one on my bahookie if I allowed the centre-half to bully me on this fair Saturday. The team was full of Glasgow boys who viewed rugby as somehow effete despite my bruises testifying to the contrary view. They believed that any middle-class game (and that was how it was viewed in the parts of Glesca I frequented in the 1960s) could not be serious. And serious included not only looking after yourself (bashing your opposition number), but not getting hurt (bashing your opposition number to the point of incapacitation).

They did not think I was tough because I played rugby. They thought I was stupid. They were right. After one promotion to the first team, I arrived at the fitba’ dressing room sniffing like Charlie Sheen after a night on the marching powder. The diagnosis was a broken nose. Again. And my nose is so big a fracture results in a swelling so grotesque that it causes traffic diversions.

It was over for me. I hung up my fear. It came back to me in a fleeting frisson when I saw Big Taqele hurtling towards me at the weekend. The dread passed, as did the winger as he shot to the line.

“What about a nickname for him?” my mate asked.

“I am going to call him Flatulence,” I said.

“Because he puts the wind up defenders?” said my mate.

“No,” I said. “It’s because he is the Thunder from Down Under.” But I am only going to call him that when I am sure he is in a different hemisphere.