IT WAS a fishing trip into the backwoods of his native Canada that brought Kevin Tkachuk face-to-face with a grizzly bear, so the Glasgow prop is probably entitled to feel more sanguine than others might about the prospect of a close encounter with Euan Murray at Pittodrie next weekend.

All being well, Tkachuk should be packing down on the loosehead side of the Canadian scrum in Aberdeen, with Murray, his former team-mate at Glasgow, at tighthead for the Scots. With a combined weight of around a quarter of a ton, their reunion might be measured on the Richter scale, but Tkachuk is already looking forward to the moment.

"Euan has become a fantastic player with Northampton," the 32-year-old Tkachuk purrs, his Manitoba drawl softened by the best part of a decade spent on this side of the Atlantic. "He was becoming very good at Glasgow, but he's really made a name for himself in the Premiership, which is no easy task. He impresses me every time I see him play and I'll really enjoy the opportunity to test myself against him next week."

Enjoy? Murray can do things to opponents that would normally require possession of a chiropractor's licence, so Tkachuk's relish for meeting his old mucker suggests a certain perversity of outlook. Still, having played international rugby against most of the best front rows in the world during a career that has already brought him 43 caps, he has hard-nosed experience to add to his insider's knowledge of the tricks of Murray's trade.

Would that the rest of Canada's squad could measure up in that regard as well. There is a callow look to the side which has slipped to 15th in the world rankings - behind Tonga and Georgia - and which appears to have lost significant ground since the golden era when its conveyor belt of talent turned out such world class performers as Norm Hadley, Gareth Rees, Rod Snow and Al Charron.

As the senior figure in the current squad, and as a player whose own career began in what may come to be remembered as the glory years of Canadian rugby, the notion that his country has lost ground, if only in the relative sense, now vexes Tkachuk. In time, he will probably go back and coach in Canada, but for the moment he has the perspective of being the only player in the side who is actually playing in a recognised top league.

"I don't think it's accurate to say that we've regressed in any way," he offers, "but while we've moved forward others have too. We're at a certain level, but the people above us aren't going to sit at the same level and wait for us to catch up. This is the major problem we have.

"We are improving in Canada, but so is everyone else. And because others were incrementally better than us, that allowed them to improve even more quickly. If we've gained 20% then they've gained 30% because they have better resources across the board."

The problem for Canada, as it always has been for rugby's developing nations, is how to manage the balance between home-based and overseas players. If the sport is too inward-looking, relying on players drawn from a handful of Canadian sides, the Test team will fall far behind the rest of the world. But if every half-decent player moves to Europe then the domestic game will suffer.

"That's the Catch 22," Tkachuk sighs. "To improve as a player you have to be experiencing a high level of competition on a weekly basis. But if all the players leave Canada then the next tier is diminished and it makes it harder to develop new talent. It's tough, but on balance we would rather have everyone on our team playing professionally on a weekly basis, which mostly means moving abroad. Yes, it would fragment us as a team, but we would be used to the level of rugby required in Test matches.

"One good thing back home is that we have concentrated the base of rugby in Victoria. Players get government money to move there and train on a virtually full-time basis. That side of things is brilliant, but we're still not getting the competition level, which is holding us back more than anything. The domestic competition is just not at the same level as the Magners League or the Guinness Premiership."

Tkachuk first came to Glasgow in 2004, by which point he had four seasons of Test rugby behind him, had played in the 2003 World Cup in Australia and had been an Oxford blue from 2001-2003 while studying for his masters degree in history. A ball-playing prop, he had also scored tries against Argentina, Wales and Australia at one point or other, achievements that make it all the stranger that his first professional club was the relatively lowly Birmingham outfit Pertemps Bees.

He is convinced, thought, that more of his compatriots could excel at higher levels. "The speed of the game comes as a shock to some of the guys when they have to play against players who are at that level all the time. I'm sure our players are capableof playing at that level, but they need more experience."

Tkachuk's career is nearer its end than its beginning, but as props have a habit of plodding on into their rugby dotages he is likely to hang around for a few seasons yet. His Glasgow contract expires at the end of this season, but he is keen to see it extended.

"I'd love to stay," he says. "Obviously that's for the management to decide, but I've really enjoyed my time in Scotland. If you live in a place for a few years then it becomes your home."