Calling A Stored Procedure Which Uses A Return @count

Hi again, and so soon...
Having just solved my previous issue, I am now trying to call this stored proc from my page.aspx.vb code. 
Firstly the stored proc looks like this:
----------- 
 ALTER PROCEDURE dbo.CountTEst

AS

   SET NOCOUNT ON
    DECLARE @sql nvarchar(100);
    DECLARE @recCount int;  
    DECLARE @parms nvarchar(100);

SET @sql = 'SELECT @recCount1 = COUNT(*)
            FROM Pool '
SET @parms = '@recCount1 int OUTPUT'            
 
exec sp_executesql @sql, @parms, @recCount1 = @recCount OUTPUT

RETURN @recCount
 -------------
When tested from the stored proc, the result is: 
@RETURN_VALUE = 4 
 
My code that calls this stored proc is:
 
        Dim connect As New SqlConnection("Data Source=.SQLEXPRESS;AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory|Database.mdf;Integrated Security=True;User Instance=True")
        connect.Open()
        Dim cmd As New SqlCommand("CountTEst", connect)
        cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure
        Dim MyCount As Int32
        MyCount = cmd.ExecuteScalar
        connect.Close()
So I expext MyCount = 4 but this code returns MyCount = 0 
With the RETURN statement in the stored proc, and  then calling it via MyCount = cmd.ExecuteScalar, I didn't think I need to explicitly define any other parameters. Any help please.

thanks,