FORMER Irish soccer international Mark Lawrenson has joined Premiership title chasers Newcastle United. Team manager Kevin Keegan has recruited the long time Liverpool star to coach his notoriously leaky defence.

Lawrenson, who will continue to contribute to The Irish Times, attended his first training session at the club yesterday and will officially take up his position next Monday.

Since his playing career was prematurely ended in 1988 by a Achilles tendon injury, Lawrenson has had spells in management at Oxford and Peterborough. He also coached at Tampa Bay, during which time the club won the North American league title.

Recently he has concentrated on his work as a football analyst on television and radio, as well as with this paper. But, he said yesterday, the offer from Keegan came as a welcome opportunity to get back into the active side of the game.

"It wasn't as if I was looking every day to get back into it, but when you've done nothing else from the time you were 16 to 30 there does seem to be something missing from your day sometimes.

"Kevin came to me and said that he was a striker and Terry McDermott was a midfielder, so they wanted someone to come in and look at the defence, and it seemed like a great chance for me.

Although Lawrenson didn't arrive at Anfield until three years after Keegan's departure, the pair have come to know each other quite well and the Newcastle manager has said in the past that it was the Irish centre half who prompted his own decision to retire from the game.

The pair came up against each other during Keegan's time as a player at St James Park and, having had his lack of pace repeatedly exposed by the Liverpool defender, Keegan came away from the contest with the feeling that it was time to call it a day.

Now the pair will team up at a time when Newcastle are at the top of the Premiership table and in the immediate aftermath of the club's best performance so far this season.

"The game on Sunday really showed how well they can play, and my role will probably amount to bits and pieces of tinkering. But I'm really looking forward to it. I get on very well with Kevin and Terry and the job is just the sort of challenge that I wanted, so I'm delighted," said Lawrenson.