Why athletics turned to a master of the mind games

Anybody who Brian Moore, the former England rugby international known as "Pitbull", describes as "a big, grizzly, bloke" has to be taken seriously.

Sports psychologist Dave Collins, who was today appointed the new performance director of British athletics, may never have coached a top athlete to an Olympic medal in his life but there is no doubt the athletics world will listen when he starts talking.

The 50-year-old former Royal Marine is an imposing figure, who stands over 6ft and played rugby for Saracens and Bedford in his youth.

But although he has a reputation for getting his way, the University of Edinburgh academic has won many fans in British sport by helping participants in a wide range of disciplines to cope with the pressures of top-class competition.

Collins certainly has creative methods.

When he worked for Britain's curling team at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics he chose to go undercover and would often be spotted carrying the brooms up and down the rink like a team "bag man". Insiders described him as a "big bloke with a low profile".

When he advised the England rugby team at the start of the 1990s, he interviewed Moore and told him simply that he did not have any psychological problems as far as sport was concerned - a decent call for one of the most competitive players ever to pull on an England shirt.

Moore walked out of the door and had little to do with him again. Sometimes the best cure is to leave well alone.

UK Athletics chief executive Dave Moorcroft made all the candidates for the job go through the same kind of psychological tests and exercises which leading managers face when they are applying to run a blue-chip company.

Collins clearly impressed Moorcroft and his mentor Sir Andrew Foster, the former boss of the Audit Commission who is helping British athletics undergo some of the biggest changes in its history.

But they are still taking a gamble by putting a man in charge who is qualified to coach rugby but has only worked as a psychologist with leading athletes like Mark Lewis-Francis and Steve Backley.

Athletics is a complicated sport with many different disciplines.

Collins will not be asked to coach, however. His job is to set up a system of coaches and support services which will help Britain's elite athletes win medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

It's a huge task. Despite the gloss of the two gold medals from Kelly Holmes and the triumph by the men's sprint relay squad, the British athletics team failed to live up to expectations at this summer's Athens Olympics.

Lottery distributor Sport England has demanded major changes to the way athletics is run before millions of pounds of funds are given to the sport.

Collins has regularly run sports psychology courses for many of Britain's Olympic sportsmen. There is no doubt he will have the skills to motivate his coaching staff. He is largely known as an affable man socially.

But today he will face the first test of whether he can handle the public side of the job at a news conference in central London, a key part of the job - especially if Britain fail to deliver at next summer's World Athletics Championships in Helsinki.