THE removal men have come and spirited Stephen Maguire away.

Somewhere, presumably inside one of the few remaining phone boxes on the motorway between Dunblane and Loughborough, scottishathletics' erstwhile director of coaching has undergone a metamorphosis into UK Athletics' new Head of Power. It is the kind of job title which surely requires its own Marvel Comic. "It's a strange one," he says with a laugh "I'm already getting that I'm 'Paddy Power'."

Technically, the Northern Irishman still has a month left of his two-year stint in charge of the sport's performance north of the border. However, in reality he will begin his new job - heading up sprints and relays, in plain English - when he links up with Great Britain & Northern Ireland's squad tomorrow upon their departure for the European Championships in Zurich, which begin on Tuesday.

It has not been the most practical time to plan a relocation. Less than a week after a valedictory stint at the Commonwealth Games which included a night shift nursing Lynsey Sharp through illness, calming nerves and providing an honest sounding board in the wake of both euphoria and dismay. He has barely had occasion to catch a breath. Maguire believes that is how it should be for those with ambitions for excellence in track and field; that no matter how enlivening the stopover, there is always another destination to input into their career sat-nav.

"And that's one of the things for the athletes and coaches to realise: it's not about being the best in Scotland," says Maguire, who arrived in 2012 fresh from coaching compatriot Jason Smyth to Paralympic gold. "It's not about even being the best in the UK. It's about getting into the toughest competition you can get into and getting out of your comfort zone. If all you're aiming for is to represent Scotland or GB, then you're not going to challenge for anything significant. The battle-hardened people - the Lynsey Sharps, the Eilidh Childs, Chris O'Hare now - were able to sustain performances and go out and fight.

"I said to Lynsey: 'You need to fight, this isn't a time trial. It's fighting for medals.' You can see that with the Kenyans, some of the English athletes. Look at Nick Willis [of New Zealand] even in the 1500m who badly wanted the bronze and got it.

"Our younger athletes need to get out there. They need to fight into races. They need to get the money to make sure their preparations are correct by being at the right training camps. There's four years until the next Commonwealths to be robust enough and tough enough to realise their potential. You can stay around Scotland and do what you need to do. But you won't progress by staying at home."

Exploration is a common theme as he dissects his time at the helm. Big fishes, small ponds. Maguire, in his days of mere aspiration, left his young family behind for lengthy spells in Florida where he could get an insider's view of America's golden formula. That experience shaped his ideology in Scotland, ditching the micro-management of his immediate predecessors and focusing instead on enabling and encouraging those coaches who dare to dream.

Early resistance gave way to widespread acceptance. Maguire has not been afraid to command where cajoling brought only an impasse.

"The frustration is: 'Do we really know what good is?' That's from the whole sport," he adds. "We're trying to bring in people who have coached successfully, people like [UKA's sprint chief] Rana Reider who's been up talking to coaches.

"Because unless you know what good is, you can't know how high to aim for. You have to be around that environment. We need coaches to get out and about. Rather than getting peer support from within Scotland they need that support out in the world."

His bequest includes an advisory link with middle-distance guru Terrence Mahon, who will counsel promising prospects in addition to his hands-on role with Sharp and O'Hare, and a system which has seen the likes of Andy Young, the bright young mentor to Laura Muir, begin to construct an offshoot within Glasgow.

There is also a feelgood factor in the air from the Commonwealth Games and a visibility which might, in the long term, generate returns for the sport. Maguire's target of three to five medals in athletics was split down the middle, with Libby Clegg's lone gold complemented by Sharp and Child's silvers and Mark Dry's bronze.

Beneath the quartet, returns were mixed. With qualifying standards in many events skewed low, around a quarter of the 57-strong squad always seemed destined to make little impact. Among the remainder are some possible diamonds in the rough that could yet shine brightly, according to Maguire.

"That's the success story," he says. "There were 30 athletes aged 23 and under. If you look at Lynsey, Eilidh, Libby and Mark, they'll all be around again. Then you can factor in the likes of Jax Thoirs, Laura Muir, Jake Wightman and Chris O'Hare. There's an age profile who can learn and grown from this, gain from it, so that in 2018, at the Gold Coast, Scotland will have a team with a good calibre of athletes if they keep progressing."