Ulster bid to lure Mike Blair from Edinburgh with £300,000-a-year offer

AFTER seeing Kelly Brown negotiate a move to Saracens last week, Scottish rugby may be about to lose another of its most faithful servants, according to sources in Ireland, which claim that Edinburgh's highest-profile player, Mike Blair, is being wooed by Ulster.

• Mike Blair. Picture: SNS

It is understood that Ulster's New Zealand-born scrum-half Isaac Boss is moving to rivals Leinster this summer and the northern province have lined up the former Scotland skipper as his replacement. While Blair, 28, has always made much of his devotion to the Edinburgh cause, Ulster are waving the sort of money at the player that he will find difficult to turn down.

The province are thought to be offering in the region of 300,000 per annum for the next two years to win Blair's signature. It's a huge amount of money, representing a substantial increase on his current earnings and a sum that the Scottish Rugby Union could not hope to match.

If Blair shakes hands on the deal, and he is not thought to have signed as yet, it will rocket him into the financial elite of rugby, though he will still be a little way behind the very highest paid in Europe. Toulon reportedly pay Jonny Wilkinson ?800,000 while Sebastian Chabal is said to earn over ?1 million at Metro Racing thanks to all the sponsorship that follows the giant lock wherever he goes. However, these deals may have to be slashed when France introduces a salary cap next season.

This looks like the start rather than the end of Ulster's spending spree because they are understood to have targeted as many as four world-class players and, as one London agent put it, "they are not looking in the January sales". Natal Sharks' Springbok scrum-half/stand-off Ruan Pienaar is also on their radar. it is believed. The province may be spending the windfall from Ireland's grand slam year but Ravenhill generates good income on its own with gates in the Magners League averaging 9,000 and that figure increasing for the Heineken Cup. A new stand and associated facilities have also increased Ulster's corporate take and until the Scottish pro teams can attract Ulster's kind of numbers through the turnstiles on a regular basis they will never be able to keep all their best players. And until that happens, Edinburgh and Glasgow will never reach the knockout stages of the Heineken Cup.