The warm September sun is on Glenn Metcalfe's back as he perches on a windowsill in one of Murrayfield's cavernous function suites. He has an after-training glow on his cheeks, although you might easily mistake it for a flush of satisfaction on the day his selection to face Ireland in Scotland's World Cup warmup match has just been confirmed. He looks relaxed, refreshed, contented. In a few days time, he will have confirmation of his place in the squad to travel to Australia as well.
He knows it, too. He is far too modest to say it, of course, but he knows that his form demands it.

The match against Ireland brought him his 36th cap and his recent performances have offered glimpses of the brilliance and alacrity that brought him his first, just over five years ago.

"It's not bad at the moment," he admits, almost sheepishly. "I've kept my place in the team, which is a good indication that I'm doing the job I suppose." The injuries that interrupted his career: the torn tendons in his ankle and the fracture of his right kneecap, are behind him now. The doubts they created in the mind of a player who had just had his 30th birthday are in the past, too. For a time he had begun to think that he might be in the autumn of his rugby life but, on this bright Edinburgh afternoon, he is more inclined to think of it as an Indian summer.

He still has his appetite; his place in the team; his excitement about playing in a second World Cup. He still has another two years on his contract with Glasgow and he is hungry for success there after too many disappointing seasons. He has his new home on the south side of the city and he has a wife and young son to share it.

What is it they say back in New Zealand? No worries, mate, no worries.

SO LET'S go back to New Zealand and back 10 years. Metcalfe is talking to his coach at Hamilton's Marist Rugby Club, one of the top club sides in the country, and doesn't like what he is hearing. He is too small to make an impact at this level, the coach tells him; he doesn't have the size and power required. If things don't change he will only ever be a bench player at the club.

It seems almost inconceivable now but Metcalfe has been a flanker until this moment. As a teenager he had been big for his age so he always played among the forwards; a star player at that level with his combination of speed and relative strength. As the years went by, though, others had caught up with him; had overtaken him in critical areas. Talking to the Marist coach, he knows what he is hearing is true. "I was pretty much the size I am now when I was at school," he recalls, "so I could get by pretty easily against guys at that age. But when I got into senior club rugby I began to struggle with the big stuff up front. "I was getting knocked about and the coach knew it wasn't happening for me. He told me I had no future as flanker and that if I wanted to carry on I should try playing on the wing."

When you have been raised in the land where loose forwards are the ultimate icons of manhood, the suggestion that you might make a better winger ranks alongside an accusation of cross-dressing in terms of insult potential. But, faced with the option of not playing at all, Metcalfe knew that he had to swallow his pride: "I wasn't happy about it at first, but as things turned out I made the transition pretty easily," he explains. "We had a good team at the time, so I started scoring tries straight away."

He scored enough to attract attention from officials at Waikato, the powerful North Island province that had recently beaten the 1993 British Lions touring side, and soon became a member of the senior provincial squad. Over the next few seasons Metcalfe made seven appearances for Waikato but, having already dealt with the fact his prospects as a flanker were limited, he soon had to confront the reality of a large black ceiling being put on any aspirations he might have in his new position. The period that saw the emergence of Jonah Lomu, Christian Cullen and Jeff Wilson as the New Zealand strike force was no time to harbour ambitions of playing on the wing for the All Blacks.

It was time to move on again. In 1996 Metcalfe came to Scotland, following the former Waikato coach, Kevin Greene, who was then working with Glasgow Accies. His arrival was low-key, as were his early appearances for a side then playing in the Scottish Second Division. He made a handful of appearances for the Glasgow district side but, even though he was eligible to play for Scotland through a grandmother from the same city, there was still no talk of international potential.

But the countdown had begun. Lift-off came the following season when Glasgow Hawks were formed, through a merger of the underachieving Accies and Glasgow High/Kelvinside, and the afterburners were ignited in January 1998 when the Hawks moved him to full-back for a routine Scottish Cup match against Cumbernauld. Within weeks it was clear that the former flanker and former winger had finally been given his stage.

"It was the same thing again," he smiles. "I was around good players in a good team. I was getting the ball on a bloody plate."

THERE ought to be a plaque at Jed-Forest's Riverside Park. It would mark the date, February 28, 1998, the spot, just outside the 22, and it would proclaim Metcalfe's emergence as a full-back of world class. Playing for the Hawks in another cup match, in front of a crowd that included Dougie Morgan, the Scotland manager, Metcalfe produced a movement: a combination of side-step, swerve and blistering pace on his way to a try that could stand comparison with the beguiling best of David Campese. He planted his opposite number so firmly to the spot that the poor fellow almost had to be dug from the ground before the conversion was taken.