Some at the sport’s HQ have felt persecuted this year by the way The Herald has given a platform to a litany of complaints from spectators about the way they feel they have been treated.

Yet those complaints continue to pour in, notably including my being copied into one supporter’s lengthy e-mail exchange with SRU staff in recent weeks about the credit card charges inflicted upon him when he bought tickets over the internet.

He was appalled to find that a charge had been apportioned not to the transaction, but to each ticket sold, so to his purchase of 14 moderately priced tickets he was being made to pay an additional £21.

The explanations offered included the claim that this is now standard practice by all involved in selling tickets for sport or entertainment, something he was able to refute instantly through the evidence of his recent purchase of tickets for a concert at the SECC.

As for it being justified on the basis of this “policy” having been in place for three years, his observation was that it is surely no defence of bad practise to say that you have been a repeat offender.

His frustration with the intransigent nature of the responses has increased with every update, most recently ending with the message: “PS; never dealt with you and your lot before and always wondered why the journos and the media always had it in for you. Now I know. I will be less than sympathetic to the SRU when the next farce erupts.”

This is the real problem facing the organisation.

The Scottish rugby community is a small one. Every disenchanted individual knows at least 10 people who are prepared to give credence to his or her concerns. Every one of those people knows another 10 who will listen. It is against that background that Saturday’s attendance figure must be looked at. The last time the Fijians visited Murrayfield 37,351 turned up.

That could be seen as offering skewed perspective since that 2002 meeting with Fiji was the last leg of Scotland’s only autumn series when they won all three matches, having beaten South Africa’s Springboks the previous week. Except for the fact that after a couple of moderate seasons the first match of that series had been against Romania and 34,413 turned out for that one.

At the moment some 40,000 tickets have been sold for this weekend’s meeting with Australia. The last time the Wallabies visited in 2006, the attendance was 64,100.

Back in 2002 Phil Anderton was in his pomp as the marketing man, a Barnum-esque salesman who understood that, while the only job of players is to compete, rather than artificially seeking to entertain, the rest of the experience has to be absolutely right for the customer.

The national team may or may not perform, but if the attention to detail is right and regular visitors feel valued they will support them through thick and thin. These days whoever is setting the policy on customer care at Murrayfield is getting something badly wrong though, because it is the tone of the responses, generally viewed as dismissive and reflecting what seems to be a corporate pomposity, that is causing most offence.

Nor is it the only Scottish sporting governing body that has such a cavalier attitude.

Yet good marketing people will tell you it is much easier to maintain a customer base than to create a new one or, even worse, attract those who have had bad previous experiences, to return.

Other complaints have been raised by our readers this week in terms of the jobsworth nonsense that resulted in those with tickets, on a horribly wet day, being prevented from taking the most direct route to the ground by walking through a car park.

In a reprise of one of last season’s major criticisms, a number of people have meanwhile pointed to the missed ‘opportunity’ that was the late call off of many club matches in Scotland because of last weekend’s weather. Those who saw that as a chance to turn their support to the national team were once again told there was no way of getting hold of tickets.

Meanwhile a colleague asks why there are signs up in Roseburn Street, next to Murrayfield, pointing out that the ticket office is open for sales until 8pm every evening ahead of matches, yet tickets cannot be sold on match day.

Either the SRU or The Herald is badly out of touch with public opinion here. I invite readers to draw their own conclusions.