Blair stands tall in face of a probable All Black onslaught

Published on Saturday 1 November 2008 19:02

Blair's pitch project is to play in ways that may surprise the Kiwis, and us, he tells Tom English

AH YES, he remembers his All Blacks experience only too well. An hour or so in the autumn of 2005. An hour in a monsoon against a New Zealand team focused to the high heavens on finishing off the final leg of their precious Grand Slam. Mike Blair wasn't selected for that match, Chris Cusiter still the scrum-half of choice at the time, but when Cusiter went down injured at the end of the first quarter it was obvious he wasn't getting up again. Blair was called for.

His response? Well, not exactly what you'd call bubbly enthusiasm. Not a leap out of his seat and a march to the touchline. Safe to say the words "I can't wait to get out into that hurricane and tackle Maa Nonu" did not cross his lips.

That's what he recalls. Driving rain and gale force winds and Maa Nonu and Rico Gear. "We had a lot of that game but they had finishers," he says. "Nonu and Gear piling through, I won't forget that. Our line-breaks kind of petered out, their's ended up as scores. Ruthless. Ruthless. Ruthless. But, then, they were the best in the world at that time. They'd just hammered the Lions. They'd beaten England, Wales and Ireland. There was no stopping them."

There's another chance on Saturday. He calls it a real chance and sounds like he means it. Two wins in 10 games in the last two Six Nations championships and Scotland's captain still thinks he can beat the All Blacks. The lowest (or joint lowest) try count in each of the last three Six Nations championships and still Blair really and truly believes that his boys can summon the wit to bring down the Kiwis. Well, sort of.

"I'm not making any balls-out prediction but we're capable of beating them, no question. Of course it can happen. They've lost some key players, they're in a building phase with a fair few young guys, they're beatable."

Is Blair off his rocker? New Zealand came from behind to beat the Aussies yesterday and didn't look all that shabby in their experimentation, Dan Carter in the centre and all. Their defence didn't appear to have too many holes in it as the Wallabies pounded them late on looking for a winning score that never came.

So, Blair bananas? Not really. Not if you believe that Scotland's results in the past two years do little to reflect the talent that Frank Hadden has at his disposal, not if you believe that there's a crop of dangerous backs emerging in this country that may, at last, return to the side its long-lost cutting edge. Ben Cairns, Graeme Morrison, Nick De Luca, the Lamonts, the Evanses, some signs in Argentina that Phil Godman has the ability to end the one-dimensional days of Dan Parks. There's a bit of menace in there, a bit of the right stuff.

"We've got more strike-power now. We have guys capable of creating and scoring tries, a bit of pace in the back three and a bit of creativity in the centre. We showed in Argentina, in the first Test but especially in the second, that we can be very potent.

"We did things we haven't always been able to do. We held on to the ball for longer periods of time and moved the defence around, we attacked pretty flat and the runners coming on to the ball were coming on at pace. We got quick ball. John Barclay coming in really cleaned up the breakdown. If you're playing off slow ball you're going nowhere. The breakdown was really speeded up and we executed the win very well."

Of course, the squad is scattered around the place these days. That creates difficulties in some ways but it presents opportunities in others. The other month Blair paid a little visit to his old mate, Simon Taylor, in Paris. Lovely. Taylor gave him a Stade Francais calendar, a risque production that Blair agreed to deliver to Taylor's mum.

"I'm going around Edinburgh with this thing under my arm, trying to hide it. Simon's picture is a chest-up shot. Grand. Some of the others are practically naked. The guy on the back (Monsieur December) was incredibly revealing. I'm going around with this calendar and trying to hide it in a bag."

Quite. Can you imagine the scene...

So Mr Blair, explain again how you came into possession of a soft porn rugby calendar? Ah, I see. Simon Taylor gave you one. He's your friend, is he?

Enough of that. Let's leave the lewd stuff to the BBC. There's serious business to discuss after all, like Blair's captaincy. He's had the gig for five Tests and says he's comfortable in the role, happy with the support he gets from his senior players and not at all weighed down by the responsibility. "If I was a nervous person it might be a problem but I'm not. Well, I am with people I don't know, but the bulk of this squad has been together for a while and we're at ease with each other. It's fine."

The role has its stresses, though. The media thing is not something he relishes, not when his team have just lost and he's still drawing breath when the press man comes and gets him and tells him he's about to address the nation. What does he say? How does he explain what went wrong 10 minutes after a final whistle?

"There are times when you lose and all you want to do is roll up and hide but you have to go and explain to people what happened, what went wrong and often you have no idea what went wrong. That's pretty tough to deal with.

"Half the time you haven't a clue what to say. You live in the moment when you're playing and it's only when you see the game again that you know what actually happened out there, who did what and how it impacted on the end result. I've come off the field in the past thinking I've played poorly and then I've looked at the video and I've done all right. And vice versa. You can get yourself in trouble by saying things after matches then you look at the video and you're wrong. I can't analyse games that quickly. That part of it is not something I enjoy but it's a job of ups and downs.

"Leading the team out against England was unbelievable. That atmosphere? That noise? You dream about playing in cauldrons like that. Then lifting the Calcutta Cup. That's a special moment."

The raucousness of an England Test, that's what he wants at Murrayfield on Saturday evening. Last time New Zealand were in town it was a non-event, a gimme handed to the visitors courtesy of Hadden's World Cup strategy of resting many of his best players, Blair included.

The hope worth clinging to is that the Kiwis arrive with that 40-0 victory in mind, with a mindset that Scotland are not very good and that Murrayfield is not very intimidating. In his mind's eye, Blair can see it differently, can see the stadium rocking and the young guns playing with a vigour we have not seen from a Scottish back line for far too long.

That's the vision. Turning it into reality is a different matter. "It can be done," he says. It can be done.

LAMONT IN TRY-SCORING FORM

SCOTLAND winger Sean Lamont gave national coach Frank Hadden a timely boost when he scored a try as Northampton staged a stunning four-try fightback to grab a bonus point 33-20 victory which takes them into the EDF Energy Cup semi-finals and breaks the Welsh stranglehold on this year's competition.

Trailing to early tries by Regan King and Matthew Stoddart, they stormed back with two first-half tries from flying winger Chris Ashton before skipper Bruce Reihana and Lamont secured a memorable victory by crossing in the second half. Lamont will be hoping the score secures his place in the Scotland team for Saturday's first autumn Test against New Zealand at Murrayfield.

He helped the rampaging Saints secured the all-important bonus point in the 65th minute when he stormed over near the posts after Lee Dickson, who had taken over at scrum-half 12 minutes earlier, found him with a perfectly-judged pass.

In yesterday's other EDF Energy Cup match, Saracens' narrow 24-22 victory over Bristol on a bitterly cold afternoon at the Memorial Stadium in front of just 5,025 supporters was not enough to secure passage past the group stage.

Northampton's bonus-point win over the Scarlets puts them through instead to to the semi-finals in Coventry in March.

Bristol had only won once before this season, the European Challenge Cup tie at home to Toulon, while Saracens had won six of their last seven games in all competitions including a 23-16 Guinness Premiership victory when they visited Memorial Stadium in October.