Ian McGeechan: The master discovers a new buzz

The Lions' woes and English rugby's latest outbreak of petty politicking have not diminished the appetite of the Wasps coach Ian McGeechan for the game he has served as a constant source of positive inspiration

"You know, I think we've handled Matt Dawson rather well," he said, referring to the World Cup-winning scrum-half's carefully managed return to Premiership rugby following his combative performances with the British and Irish Lions. "Twenty minutes, then half an hour, then pretty much a full game. Sympathetic, well thought out ... it's the way it should be."

Not according to the Rugby Football Union management board, the Twickenham performance department and the England coach Andy Robinson, it isn't. They believe Dawson should have been ordered to stay in bed until this weekend, when Wasps play Worcester at the Causeway Stadium, and are prepared both to withhold from the Londoners £15,000 in Lions compensation and to defend their position before whatever court the clubs decide to drag them to. The fact that McGeechan was one of the Lions coaches and served alongside Robinson on the trip underlines the complexity of rugby alliances in the professional era.

It is enough to make a sporting sage shake his head in disbelief, but McGeechan, as sagacious as they come with four Lions coaching stints and a Five Nations Grand Slam with Scotland to his name, has been through a whole lot worse than this. Not least at Murrayfield, where he returned in 1999 to run the national side - a prelude to his taking on the rugby directorship in 2003. Most observers assumed he would see out his career in the higher echelons of the game north of the border, but in the event, he lasted less than two years in latter post. A miracle-worker he may be - witness the Lions' triumph over the Springboks in 1997 - but miracles are nowhere near enough when the Scottish establishment starts throwing its dead weight around.

"I hadn't realised in advance just how small-minded some people in the committee structure could be," he said with a deep and meaningful sigh. "I found myself fighting battles I shouldn't have had to fight. I was trying to introduce things that so obviously needed to happen, but with so many different agendas flying around and so many counter-productive arguments taking place, every decision I attempted to make turned out to be a major issue. I quickly came to the conclusion that in some quarters in Scotland, the professional game simply was not accepted.

"When I left Northampton to return to Scotland in 1999, I was both shocked and annoyed by the scale of this non-acceptance. How did I feel when I found myself having the self-same arguments more than five years on? Let's just say I found life a little difficult. I was keen to pull things together in what I considered to be a constructive way, to modernise and incentivise the game at a number of levels, to engage with the bigger picture, to get our rugby organised in a professional manner, even at the amateur end. Why? Because it was obvious to me that Scotland would continue to fight a losing battle unless we changed our approach. I had the full support of a forward-looking chairman and a very able chief executive" - David Mackay and Phil Anderton - "but it wasn't enough. They resigned. A few weeks later, I was gone too."

Despite this tale of woe, McGeechan does not regard his Murrayfield tenure as a failure. "There are new structures in place now, better than the ones they replaced, and I'd like to think I played a positive role in the process," explained the former schoolmaster. "Andy Irvine [the buccaneering full-back of the 1970s] has become heavily involved, and I think I'm safe in saying he wouldn't have been president of the union under the old system. The board controls what it needs to control, which helps. And besides, the problems I encountered reminded me how much I had always enjoyed hands-on coaching and how much I missed it. It's the educationalist in me, I suppose. It rekindled my desire for a direct involvement with high-calibre players, so when this job with Wasps arose, I couldn't have been happier."

A move to a club of Wasps' standing brings its own pressures, however. When McGeechan first materialised at the top end of English club rugby, with Northampton midway through the 1994-95 season, the Midlanders were down among the dead men at the foot of what was then known as Courage League One. They were duly relegated, but their new coach, fresh from a strikingly successful stint with the Scotland of David Sole and Finlay Calder, quickly got to grips with the culture of underachievement at Franklin's Gardens, restoring them to élite status at the first attempt and laying the foundations for an epic Heineken Cup triumph in 2000. His new club, by contrast, have good habits already, thank you very much. Three Premiership titles, one European title and two Powergen Cups in seven seasons? If there is room for improvement, it will take some finding.

"We are," agreed McGeechan with an ironic smile, "starting from a point that might reasonably be described as fairly high. Certainly, there is no comparison with the situation I encountered at Northampton a decade or so ago. But nothing stands still, whether you're in good shape or bad. I have always been a believer in moving things on, in creating a progressive environment by flagging up aspects of the game, some big and some barely perceptible, that might be done better. The trick is to keep pushing forward.

"Before I agreed to come here, I had some long, very interesting chats with Lawrence Dallaglio, and he gave me a strong indication that he felt I was right for the club. Yes, the players here have a wonderful attitude: Alex King, Joe Worsley, Lawrence ... these are people with a considerable amount of experience, and any coach worth his salt would benefit from building a dialogue with them. It's a two-way process in many ways - certainly, I take the view that a good coach learns in the same way, and to the same degree, that players learn.

"The immediate challenge is to keep Wasps at the top of the English game - no simple matter, given the way the intensity of the Premiership increases year on year. No matter who you are, you have to be cleverer than you were last time, and that is especially important with a side like Wasps, who are not the biggest team on earth. We have to be quick, we have to be accurate and we have to be very physical in very specific areas of our game. A little like Northampton all those years ago, and a little like Scotland too. Many of the things we're trying to do here have always been close to my heart."

McGeechan's heart beats strongest in Lions year, of course, and he was pained by the deafening misfire in All Black territory last summer, despite coaching the midweek team to a full hand of victories over Taranaki, Wellington, Southland, Manawatu and, perhaps unexpectedly, Auckland. He admits that he found it "an odd experience" to be on the outside looking in as far as the Saturday side were concerned, and concedes that the identification and moulding of the Test line-up took too long.

"Losing Lawrence as early as we did, losing Brian O'Driscoll in the first few seconds of the opening Test ... those setbacks had major impacts on the group. But I would also say that we needed to accelerate what we were doing in terms of selection and preparation for the major matches. We should have been up to speed earlier than we were."

A calamity, then? Characteristically, McGeechan remains more interested in the silver lining than in the big black cloud that accompanied the Lions from Auckland and Rotorua in the north to Dunedin and Invercargill in the south. "The players were tremendous," he insisted. "In terms of spirit and application, they really were unusually good.

"Quite honestly, I can say that I took a good deal from the experience. Gareth Jenkins and Mike Ford were inspiring people to work alongside, and the players with whom I spent a lot of time - Martin Corry, Gordon Bulloch, Charlie Hodgson - have my complete respect. They understood what it took to be positive forces on that tour, and I thank them for it. As long as I'm coaching and managing people of that calibre, I'll be happy in my work."