THE men's Scottish 4 x 100 metres relay national record has stood since the 1978 Commonwealth Games when David Jenkins, Allan Wells, Cameron Sharp and Drew McMaster held off Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica to take gold in what was then also a UK record.

Jamaica, with half our population, has since become the dominant world sprint force, Scotland is the land where times stand still. The men's native 4 x 100m record is 30 years old; the women's marks have endured 27 and 43 years respectively. At 4 x 400m it's 27 and 43 years for the men, although just three and 12 for the women. A medal is possible for the women's 4 x 400 quartet next year in Glasgow, but the other statistics are desperately depressing.

So, spare some sympathy for Roger Harkins, charged with turning that round. Best known as Lee McConnell's coach, he is scottishathletics' newly-appointed coach mentor for sprints and hurdles, in a programme devised by the director of coaching, Stephen Maguire. Harkins has hit the ground running, enlisting the former European 200m champion Dougie Walker, Athens Olympian Carey Marshall and World Indoor hurdles finalist Allan Scott.

"I am not there to coach athletes," he tells me. "I am there to mentor athletes. I will be mentoring four to six coaches, who have yet to be identified. Dougie, Allan, and Carey will not necessarily be the coaches I mentor. We are going to launch a relay programme but I will not be running it, those three will.

"I hope coaches will buy in, because it's run by experienced former international athletes. The aim is to use the relay to restore the quality of Scottish sprinting, men and women. We have lots of experienced coaches and athletes who have worked at a high level, but for whatever reason, people have become disenfranchised. It's time to tap back into that."

This is a diplomatic reference to coaches who claim the system has broken down (their commission ceased to exist), with many doing their own thing. Many feel national coaches have poached athletes from them, or that they have been levered into surrendering their athletes to professional UK staff. Maguire, it must be said, has worked overcome that perception. He does not coach athletes but focuses on coach development.

"I'm taking a leaf out of Stephen's book," Harkins said. "We don't want the thought that we are trying to poach - or coach - their athletes to enter coaches' heads.

"We have good coaches working to a high level, and they're still here, but the depth of sprinters is not. We have to bring the few we have together, not under one coach but by putting the relay at the heart of this, and getting them together every five or six weeks.

"They don't all train together and that's the problem. They train all winter, imagining what they need to do be the best in Scotland in the summer. It's too far away. They need to test themselves against each other in the winter, do some relay work, basic testing and monitoring, even some fun competitive stuff. There are just not enough good sprinters in Scotland for them to be kept apart, and too few not to share what we are doing. And it will all be done through the coaches."

Harkins plans to establish under-20, under-18, and possibly under-16 squads, chosen initially from ranking lists. No senior squad? His comment that this is a "long-term project" is a tacit acknowledgement that the target is not Glasgow 2014. "By the 2018 Games, I expect to see a marked improvement if everyone is willing to work together," he said.

A former Scottish triple jump champion, Harkins coached his biggest (and better) rival while an athlete, resisting pleas from his own coach, Norrie Foster, to switch to 400m hurdles.

He clocked 52.4 in only his second race, but a week later put the front wheel of his bike down an uncovered drain and suffered a back injury which effectively ended his career. "I never found out how good I might have been," he said. "Lots of coaches are competitors with a feeling of unfinished business."

Para sport guru Ian Mirfin was first of the coach mentor appointments some months ago. Others recently added are Hugh Murray (throws), Robert Hawkins (endurance), and Darren Ritchie (jumps).