Rugby Union: McGeechan quits Saints to lead Scots

IAN McGEECHAN, the most accomplished European coach since Carwyn James, yesterday accepted the very opportunity so scandalously denied to the great Welshman almost 30 years ago: the task of leading his countrymen into rugby's promised land by making a significant impact on the international stage. McGeechan agonised long and hard before turning his back on Northampton just as five years of sweat and toil looked set to bear fruit, but the challenge of taking his beloved Scotland through to the 2003 World Cup proved too tantalising to resist.

Murrayfield's gain was very definitely Franklin's Gardens' loss, but when push came to shove, the most honoured British Lion of them all - two tours as a player and an unprecedented three as a coach - reached the conclusion that blood will always be thicker than even the most handsome Premiership wage slip. Unlike James, a fellow Lions high-achiever whose radical ideas scared the pants off the conservative Welsh Rugby Union hierarchy, McGeechan has been given the chance to guide a talented squad to previously unscaled peaks of Test success.

He very nearly hit the heights when he last coached his country during the early years of this decade: having secured his famous 1990 Grand Slam by beating England in Edinburgh, he came within an ace of inspiring Scotland to their first ever victory over the All Blacks in New Zealand. Yet the squad he will inherit from Jim Telfer after the World Cup is significantly richer than his previous vintage, as their unexpected but imaginative success in the recent Five Nations proved. McGeechan has always been at his best in the company of outstanding players and it will be fascinating to see how far he takes the likes of Gregor Townsend, John Leslie, Tom Smith, Gordon Bulloch and Scott Murray.

Until yesterday, Northampton assumed that he would be maximising the talents of Federico Mendez, Pat Lam, Tim Rodber, Matt Dawson and Allan Bateman in a determined assault on next season's Premiership. Keith Barwell, the Saints' enthusiastic owner, could not hide his disappointment at the coach's departure, although he said magnanimously: "Ian is a proud Scot and we are not about to stand in the way of someone who is about to achieve a lifelong ambition." For what it was worth, McGeechan told Barwell that no other job could have lured him away.

McGeechan has agreed a four-year deal with the Scottish Rugby Union and he has resigned his post at Northampton with immediate effect in order to help Telfer, his old Lions partner, negotiate the forthcoming World Cup. "I must admit that I relish the challenge of international rugby," he said yesterday. "The Lions trip to South Africa in 1997 made me realise just how much I enjoy that sort of atmosphere." For his part, Telfer paid his countryman the most handsome of tributes. "We had the world from which to select, but it was a straightforward decision to ask Ian to take charge. He has been at the cutting edge of coaching for years and has one of the most perceptive and innovative rugby brains I have encountered."

Barwell must now appoint a successor capable of sustaining the momentum generated by McGeechan last season, when Northampton finished second in the Premiership. Three experienced coaches will automatically come under consideration: Richard Hill, John Kingston and Mike Brewer, the former All Black who, by coincidence, was instrumental in slamming the door on McGeechan's Scotland in Auckland back in 1990. All three are on the market after respective spells at Gloucester, Richmond and West Hartlepool.