Rugby: Saints star Lee Dickson ready to do battle with Mike Blair

Had things worked out differently, Northampton star Lee Dickson could have been challenging Mike Blair for a place in Scotland's national rugby team at scrum half.

But a change of direction after representing Scotland at under-19 level six years ago saw Dickson, who was born in Germany to an English mother and a Scottish father, revert to England where he as so far played in the Saxons line-up, effectively England B.

Now, though, the pair are on a collision course once more with Blair's Edinburgh due to encounter the Saints on Saturday in a key Heineken Cup pool game (kick off 1.30pm) at Murrayfield.

It's a tie Edinburgh must win to keep qualification hopes alive after going down to Cardiff in the opening round, albeit collecting a losing bonus point in the process.

But Dickson believes that defeat will only make Edinburgh all the more determined to turn the clock back to 2000-01 season when they defeated Northampton - then reigning European champions - home and away.

"We know that Edinburgh are a very good side and we have to do our homework on them," said Dickson in appealing for feet to be kept on the ground after a narrow 18-14 home win over Castres first up.

"It is going to be tough task for us to go away from home and hopefully we can put in a strong performance.

"As to probably playing against Mike on Saturday, every week I play against someone who is right up there with the best - I played against (England's) Ben Youngs and Danny Care in the last couple of weeks - and while against Castres it was a French scrum half (Sebastian Tillous-Borde) and next it is likely to be Mike all I know is that Mike is a great player."