It would be stretching it a bit far to suggest that Howe of Fife’s Chris Mason is the best player in Scottish club rugby outside the BT Premiership.
There are hundreds of clubs and thousands of players to choose from, with quality performers tapping in and out of the club game on their way up and back down the ranks.
Andy Henderson, the 50-times capped Scotland centre playing for GHA against the Howe on Saturday at Duffus Park, is just one such example.
There’s just no way to make a definitive judgment. But if there’s a discussion, Mason has to be in it, and his astonishing four-try performance in lifting the Howe to a 31-7 “upset” BT Cup victory over the Glaswegian side underlines that.
Yes, it’s a team game and no team personifies that ethos more than the Howe there are no stars here, just as head coach Garry Horne puts it “a bunch of mates who play decent rugby together”.
But Mason is the central figure in this team. He does everything; tackles like crazy, sprints up and down the field, calls and takes the lineouts, and of course, scores plenty of tries.
There are fewer better examples of a ball magnet at any level of the game Mason always appears to be half a yard from where the ball is if he’s not actually got it in his hands.
The question with Mason always is could or should he have played at a higher level. He was captain of the famous Howe/Bell Baxter team that swept the Scottish Schools and Youth trophies in 2006, the team that produced Scotland caps Peter Horne and Chris Fusaro, and he was thought to be as good as they were.
But being undersized for a back row in the pro game and his own attitude about his rugby loyalty to his club and his friends has meant he had never entertained a move away from Duffus.
“That’s Chris, week in and week out, season in and season out,” said coach Horne.
“He plays to that level and intensity all the time. I suppose we’ll never know what he could have been if he was a bit bigger or bulked up, but we’re just grateful for his loyalty to this club.”
Mason may not be the best amateur player in the country, but Howe would not have anyone else. Even when they had the physical power and pace of Rory Drummond off the back row before he left for Watsonians, Mason was always No 8.
The hinge of Mason, scrum-half Stewart Lathangie and fly-half Dom Martin has been a fixture for four seasons now Lathangie and Mason have been a partnership since their early teens and it seems at times they could find each other in the pitch black.
The way they work together was perfectly illustrated by the third try, which finally broke GHA’s resistance after the visitors had brought the score back to 17-7.
Howe won a scrum in the opposition 22, but although they were being shoved back decisively by the bigger GHA pack, the speed of hooker Graeme Steedman’s heel and Mason’s pick-up turned that into a virtue.
Before the men in green could detach from the scrummage, the ball had shifted from Mason to Lathangie to Martin with the No 8 looping around to take an off-load from his 10 and slice through a gap to complete his hat-trick.
The first try came off a similarly well-drilled move except from lineout ball, and the other two tries were examples of the way Howe play, off loading at pace and hitting the gaps decisively.
Tom Turpie and Steedman both made clean breaks and there was no question who would be on their shoulders for the run-in when they passed out of the last defender’s tackle.
This was an “upset” because GHA are pushing for promotion to the Premiership and Howe are leading the division below, but few were surprised at the result.
Howe’s home record is truly impressive, not losing a league game at Duffus for several seasons, and as their coach said when asked for his quarter-final draw preference “anyone here would be fine”.
But the club are also ambitious beyond the quarter-finals. The fund-raising of £1.6 million to turn Duffus into a community sports facility continues, and they’re in charge of their own fate leading National League Two just after the halfway point.
It seems Mason will get what he deserves, to play at a higher level and with the club he’s spent all his career with.