The BBC's legendary commentator Bill McLaren will bow out frm the game tomorrow after 50 years service, fearful over the future of the game.

McLaren will take the microphone for the last time at the Millennium Stadium when Scotland take on Wales in their final Six Nations 2002 clash.

It will bring an end to a 50-year career which has seen the charming Borderer become a household figure and one of the most famous figures rugby union has ever produced.

Standing ovations have accompanied his farewell roadshow this season, and another is certain to float out of the Valleys from supporters who once carried a banner proclaiming 'Bill McLaren is a Welshman' after one international in the 1970s heyday.

For a man who missed out on international recognition as a player when he contracted tuberculosis after being selected for a final trial, it was some achievement.

But from his new vantage point in front of his television screen rather than behind it, McLaren hopes the blanket defences which have become such a feature of the modern game do not eventually scar it.

"The worst game I can remember was a Scotland-Wales game in 1963 when there were 111 line-outs," he said.

"The sleet was slanting down, the pitch was like a swamp and there was hardly any decent rugby at all. Three days later I covered a Hawick v Melrose Border League game and there were 108 line-outs.

"Rugby union was dying as a spectacle because the ball hardly ever got out to the back division. It was hard to watch and terrible to commentate on.

"I am scarred by that time and I have a little fear that we might be on the way back.

"I hope rugby union will continue to be a game to watch but the defences are much more organised than they used to be.

"It worries me that people are not prepared to take risks. They are not nearly as much attacking from deep as there used to be."

While McLaren's career has embraced the advent of professionalism, he still describes himself as 'a Corinthian', feeling some of the comradeship has gone out of the sport as the pursuit of victory becomes all-consuming.

That doesn't mean he can't appreciate the greater athleticism of the modern era, particularly an England side he feels will go close to conquering the world next year.

"The current England side is the strongest I have ever seen," he said.

"It surprises me they haven't won four Grand Slams in a row because the have the personnel but I wonder if there is something in the English make up which leaves them to think they can do it without playing at their best.

"Winning the World Cup takes a lot of things but I don't see why they shouldn't do it, other than if they beat themselves.

"If England put 100 1022nto every match, they will be hard to turn over in the World Cup."

Meanwhile, McLaren will make final preparations for his final international. He will study both team's training sessions and then spend Friday evening revising his copious notes in preparation for the last exam, for which he hopes the final outcome will be a handsome Scottish victory.

"A 35-6 Scotland win would be nice," he smiled, "although I don't suppose that will be easy.

"It's an appropriate game for my last commentary because Wales is one of the first places I worked. It is very much like my own area of the Scottish Borders in its passion for the sport.

"There will be a great feeling of sadness for me because rugby union has been so much part of all our lives since I was nine years old.

"I have seen so many outstanding players and matches and haven't had to pay to get in to any of them.

"I would like to be remembered as having been fair, but if I was to pick one match, it would be the 1990 Grand Slam game at Murrayfield.

"For Scotland to have beaten England was something, for them to win a Grand Slam was even better and for Tony Stanger, one of my primary school pupils in Hawick, to score the crucial try was something else.

"It will be a terrible wrench to leave, but my wife Bette has a little of list of jobs for me to do.

"I have had a great time but I am ready to put my feet up now. I just wish I could have won that one cap."