There were times when the casual observer could have been forgiven for thinking he wore several different shirts: Blair was the scrum-half with a whole lot more. The sweeping hands on the outskirts of the breakdown, and those frequent, lancing spurts over the gain-line drew a familiar outline, but there was colour as well as courage to Blair’s thrilling performance. His tackling, in common with the rest of a suddenly bolshie Scotland back-line, caused more dents than his delicate bearing gives a right to expect. There was a startling physicality, too, in the way Blair subsumed himself to the rolling maul that sent over Sean Lamont for the game-defining try as a gripping second half unfolded.
Such was the verve with which he threw himself at the occasion, you half-expected the blood to come out blue when his nose was split open 10 minutes later, springing his junior rival Chris Cusiter from the reserves bench where many observers had suspected the 24-year-old Blair would be sitting all along.
Enforced as it was, this latest passing of the torch between a pair who would have been standard bearers in their own right had their parents not brought them into the world within 14 months of one another, struck a cautionary note with Blair, one that he was willing to hear loud and clear. Much like Scotland as a whole, he may have won a single, significant battle, but there is still a brute of a war to contend with.
“The France game was a massive step, for the team and for me, but I don’t think there’s been any major change in dynamic in the situation with Chris and I,” he says. “Whenever you’re selected to go out and play, you’ve got an opportunity to stake a claim. Chris has had a few, and I’m getting more now. I’m sure he’ll get more in this tournament, and I’m also sure that he’ll make a big impact when he does.”
Frank Hadden, a schoolmaster at Merchiston Castle until six years ago, will have spent much of that previous life trying to pick his way through petty playground rivalries, but seems to have realised that in the adult world of international rugby there can be advantages in playing people off against each other. The head coach has so far declined to come down definitively in favour of either of the two exceptional scrum-halves he finds in his midst, meaning that each is compelled to impress him, to strain for the very extremes of his talent, whenever the other is relegated to a walk-on part. Gratifyingly for Scotland, when these two are looking to score points off each other, it usually involves putting a few on the opposition as well.
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Their private arm-wrestle has been going on since 2004 at senior level, but in reality began much earlier, when the pair were among five scrum-halves competing for the job with the under-21s (and Hadden thinks he’s got it tough). Blair, initially, was actually further up the queue for the full-back position, and only snuck in to a lasting place at No9 when a series of glossy sevens performances showed his hands to be more articulate than all those on offer elsewhere.
The summer of 2002 proved to be the springtime of this early career, as Ian McGeechan pulled him into the full squad for a tour of North America, and a Scotland sevens place was his at the Manchester Commonwealth Games. The following year, Blair featured in six of the games Scotland tucked into a calendar elongated by the World Cup, This at a time when it took someone seriously brave, or seriously talented, to attempt to take the shirt off Bryan Redpath’s back.
When Redpath retired at the end of the Australian tournament, nevertheless, it was presumed that his long-time support runner would be granted custody of the baton. But Matt Williams, in one of his more lucid moments, was taken by Cusiter’s development in his first year of a professional, and started with him in 16 of his 17 games as coach. Injury was the only chance Blair got under the Australian to respond to what he must have considered an insult, a calf strain keeping Cusiter out of the Calcutta Cup match at Twickenham last March. From heir apparent, Blair had been abruptly recast as a mere pretender to the throne.
“Of course it was frustrating, of course it was demoralising, but I never saw the original situation as being as clear cut as the papers had it,” he points out. “I always knew Matt had a choice to make, I never thought I was going to be a certain starter, as some journalists have tried to make out. People thought he (Cusiter) had come out of the blue, but I knew a lot about him from age-group stuff, and knew what he could do. Matt decided to take that direction, and I couldn’t do too much about it.”
Where he seemingly never had a prayer trying to convince Williams, with Hadden it was a case of preaching to the converted. During their time together at Edinburgh, Blair blasted his way through another intriguing gunfight, this time with Rory Lawson, to become the axis upon which the creative cogs of the team turn.
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Hadden’s esteem pre-dates this working relationship, nevertheless.
Former charges at Merchiston still remember him bringing in tackle bags with Blair’s name scrawled upon them for the training sessions before a game against Edinburgh Academy, their great academic and rugby rivals, and the school that Blair attended.
Hadden’s current favour has not been won by past glories or mere professional familiarity, though. Blair has earned his starting place by becoming the player Hadden must have mentally designed all those years ago. His pass is among the crispest in the British game, his break is fast approaching such a status, and his defence compares favourably with that of any of his Six Nations counterparts.
“If the pack dominate, as the Scotland guys did on Sunday and the Edinburgh guys have been all season, it automatically makes the half-backs look a lot better,” he says, doing himself more of a disservice than even Williams managed. “If the forwards do a good job, it makes it a lot of fun for me.”
Blair has been enjoying himself so much recently that he has decided to try and ride the wave for a further two years, one of six core Edinburgh and Scotland players to extend their contracts in the last three weeks. There was a “wee bit of interest” from the Guinness Premiership (where David, his younger brother, occasionally turns out for Sale) but not enough to make Blair lose his in the Scottish game. Finally, there seems to be a product worth buying into.
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“Definitely. I’ve been very happy with the way things have being going at Edinburgh, and things are building with Scotland, too. Last week was proof of that. Frank had spoken to the squad about how important it was that we gave something positive to the journalists to write about, and the crowd to talk about.”
“We’ve also discussed the fact that we’ve got a big say in the future of the game in this country. We’re conscious that our results bring about increased grass-roots numbers, bring passion for the game back into Scotland. That’s been lacking a bit in the last three or four years, maybe even longer than that, going back to the 1999 Five Nations win. The players know we have a responsibility; we’re the main product for the SRU, and if we’re going well, it means the business will go well.”
If it is business as usual for Blair this afternoon, Scotland’s Six Nations account could start to show an exceedingly healthy profit.