THE Glasgow coach, Kevin Greene, who next weekend takes the district side to a Heineken Cup quarter-final play-off against Leicester, last night defended his integrity in the face of an amazing challenge by Kilmarnock RFC.

A highly embarrassing row has erupted between the Ayrshire club and Glasgow District Rugby Union over the future of Glasgow's Cook Islands' stand-off Tommy Hayes and the fact that Greene, who was instrumental in bringing Hayes to Scotland, is a director with a New Zealand company which acts as a go-between for Kiwi players wanting to come to the UK.

Kilmarnock declared in a statement yesterday that they would raise with the SRU the issue of paid officials having a dual role. ''This could lead to confusion - as was the case with us - but could also bring the game into disrepute unless it is carefully monitored and controlled,'' said club president Brian Rowlands.

He added: ''There is no suggestion from Kilmarnock that this has been the case, but we seek to clear up a potential anomaly which we found confusing and possibly that has also been the case with other clubs who may have received simi-lar approaches about players.''

Kilmarnock claimed earlier this week that they had not been given the opportunity to bid for Hayes, who has still to settle with a club once the district season is over. Yesterday, Kilmarnock admitted that a club official did, indeed, speak to Greene about Hayes signing with Kilmarnock, but had done so in the belief that the conversation was taking place on the basis that Greene was Hayes' agent and not in his capacity of Glasgow coach.

Greene, the former Waikato coach, who has been in Scotland for three years and is due to leave for home on Monday week after Glasgow's play-off match against Leicester, said yesterday that he had never made any secret of the fact that, along with his brother, he was a director of Greene Management Services.

''I brought Tommy over here because I thought he was a player who could do a job for Glasgow, and I think he has,'' said Greene. ''It was also through the company that I was involved with the Silver Thistles, the SRU-sanctioned scheme which exposed a squad of promising Scottish youngsters to New Zealand rugby. Why this should suddenly become an issue now is beyond me.''

However, it also emerged in the Kilmarnock statement yesterday that the club is currently in dispute with Greene Management Services. Rowlands declared: ''We have had several approaches from Kevin Greene over bringing overseas players to Scotland and the club is currently in dispute with the New Zealand agency of which he is a director.''

Rowlands maintains that Greene, as the player's agent, is offering Hayes' services to clubs in exchange for a commercial package on top of his district contract. He says that the club will raise with the SRU domestic board the question of what happens to a player brought over by one district who then accepts an offer from a club in a rival district. Under rules soon to be brought in, the player would then have to play for the district in which his club was based.

Green said: ''Frankly, I find all of this amazing. On the instructions of the chief executive of Glasgow District I have been speaking on Tommy's behalf to suitable clubs in Glasgow district. I felt I owed Tommy that because I got him over here.

''There has also been interest expressed by English clubs, but so far as other Scottish clubs in other districts are concerned, I don't know where that comes from. If my integrity and honesty is being called into question here then I am hurt by that. I have done nothing wrong or dishonest, but some people seem to have different agendas in life.''