‘After I broke my ankle in the summer and missed the tour I really wanted to carry on. But I soon realised my heart just wasn’t in it and I knew I had to retire. Also by me being in I could be keeping someone else out and I didn’t want to do that.’

Humble words, but the man is not a good spectator and it was a real struggle to watch his ex-team mates last Saturday. ‘I’m the worst voyeur of rugby, I do miss it - more so now we’re back in club training after a week off and all the guys are missing.  But there are other things I want to do; one of those is to concentrate on doing my best for my club’.

Glasgow have had a pretty unsatisfactory season so far - they currently lie 7th in the league and lost all four European Cup pool games. But Mather is all too aware of where the problems lie, ‘We don’t have a big squad so when we do suffer a number of injuries we don’t necessarily have the quality of depth.  The most annoying thing though this season is that we have 7 losing bonus points so we’ve been there or there abouts – we lost to both Munster and Neath in the last minute of the game.’

Mather also feels the League has stepped up a gear this year and some of the younger members of the team are not used to playing at this level, so the club are still finding their feet in the competition. ‘It’s definitely harder this year, which is a good thing. Certainly the Irish teams have really taken it seriously this season, where as last year it seemed more of a warm up for them for Europe.’

With thoughts turning to where Mather sees his playing career drawing to a close the 32 year old, who first settled in the UK from New Zealand in 1994, is clear where he’d like his future beyond Glasgow to lie.  ‘I first played for Watsonians when I came here in the Wainwright and Hastings era and I always vowed I would go back and play or coach a few seasons there to repay the support they gave me. I feel sometimes there is an attitude in professional rugby that rugby owes a player a living rather than the other way around. I’d really like to give something back.’ 

He also sees a future away from rugby perhaps in property development. ‘I really want to get involved in the property business in some way, and also myself and a group of guys are looking into furniture retail.’  Luckily he has a bit of grounding for this as his mum is an architect and interior designer; lets hope some of her talent has rubbed off.

In the meantime, as for how Scottish club rugby can keep on improving it is a simple answer. ‘As soon as some stability is established and there is one clear body running the professional game in Scotland the better things will be - hopefully by the beginning of next season this will all be in place.’   And as long as he doesn’t swap his rugby kit for decorating overalls too soon, he should be around to benefit from those changes and witness the resurgence in Scotland rugby that the National team sewed the seeds of against France.