Blond bombshell inspiring talk of Scotland revival

Sean Lamont embodies the dashing new spirit of the game north of the border. Grant McRae hears how the winger learnt to relax and start winning

Having watched from a respectful distance as his pack rumbled and trundled a driving maul from near the French 22 early in the second half, Lamont decided to join the heaving mass of bodies after all the hard yards had been won and the try line was finally beckoning. By rights, the winger should have left touching the ball down to one of the piano shifters who had just done the difficult bit, but instead he whipped the thing away and claimed the honour for himself.

Asked about the incident after his place in the Scotland side to face Wales on Sunday had been confirmed at yesterday's team announcement at Murrayfield, Lamont suggested that the stick he had subsequently been given by his forwards had been "tongue-in-cheek, nothing major". There was, however, a strong whiff of euphemism in the testimony of his coach, Frank Hadden, who said: "It would be fair to say there has been a bit of banter."

Yet it is for reasons beyond the mauling technique, the two tries or even the fact the two men are distant relatives that Lamont's was probably the first name to be added to Hadden's team sheet yesterday morning. As intense and discerning an analyst as he is, Hadden had no need to resort to any coaching techno-babble to explain his admiration for the player: "I like him because he's big and strong and he runs fast."

Those qualities were evident in the way Lamont collected his first try against France, after 10 minutes, when he crashed past a flailing Frédéric Michalak and powered over the line. In his 17th appearance for Scotland it was only his fourth international try, but the arrival of his fifth shortly afterwards, and the persistent threat he posed in broken play, suggest his rate of return could be about to improve dramatically.

That would be a fitting pattern for the 25-year-old, who kept his talents well hidden during three seasons at Rotherham when his first-team appearances were on the rare side of occasional. Rescued by Glasgow, he was a free-running and free-scoring winger in the two years he spent north of the border before last summer's move to Northampton. However, it is only in recent matches that he has made a virtue of his flamboyant inclinations at international level.

Only, in fact, since the arrival of Hadden at the helm as successor to Matt Williams, the Australian whose time in charge of Scotland produced a catastrophic series of results. Lamont can thank Williams for giving him his international debut, but he clearly shed few tears over his going and is now relishing Hadden's more relaxed regime.

"It's just such a different atmosphere," Lamont said. "Frank's a lot more laid-back, has a great knowledge of the game and manages players well. He asks players what they think, whereas Matt was a much more authoritarian figure. Frank talks to you, not at you."

While Hadden has given players like Lamont licence to play off the cuff, Williams was heavily reliant on statistical analysis. "You can drown players in too much information," Lamont said. "Matt used to have a lot of meetings, and I mean a lot, but Frank just does what's necessary.

"Matt wanted meetings before every training session and two every evening. We had meetings to go over what happened in the previous meeting, or to discuss what we'd do at the next meeting. Sometimes the best thing to do is just get away from that stuff and clear your head of rugby."

Even in a 2005 Six Nations championship where they won only one match, against Italy, Scotland last season hinted at what they could do on a few occasions when they unshackled themselves from Williams' dogma and played a more intuitive game. That doing so has now become their signature has played, quite literally, into Lamont's hands, and with the combination of sheer elusiveness and his 6ft 2in and 16st frame he has now emerged as one of the most dangerous strike runners in the game.

Throw in the hair highlights and the poster-boy looks and Scotland now have, for perhaps the first time in a decade, a player with the sort of instantly identifiable qualities that will bring him recognition outside the game's own boundaries. After years in the rugby doldrums, Scots are daring to think that an exciting new era may be about to dawn.

And Lamont brings an outlook that could fuel that belief: "We've had enough of being valiant losers," he said. "Now we want results. Now we want to win."