The Scots have given the world many things. We are responsible for the telephone, refrigerator, flush toilet, ATM, MR scanner, penicillin and television. We made a pioneering contribution to science, technology and communication, and to the unique culinary pleasure of stuffing a sheep’s stomach with our own crushed organs and serving it with potatoes and turnips. Well, you wouldn’t want to waste any of the good stuff, would you? We are a nation of adventurers, explorers, creators, innovators and craftsmen. Our little country has punched above its weight in so many ways.
Top 50 female rugby players of 2026 – HERE.
Stay tuned this week as RugbyPass count down their top 50 women’s players, with the winner announced this Friday! See who has already made the list…
In professional rugby, however, Scotland they were not very influential. If the Springboks and All black people are in rugby TikTok-dancing, drinking iced coffee, cutting-edge live streams, up until about 10 years ago we were still using dial-up internet and hoping no one needed a landline at the same time.
There were isolated success stories. Richie Gray (not that one) has become a sought after contact expert with his Collision King technology. Jim Telfer and Ian McGeechan were decades ahead of their time. Telfer was shaped by his experiences as a player in New Zealand. And today, Gregor Townsend has completely changed the way people perceive Scottish rugby.
But when I was growing up, if you would suggest the first side New Zealand the coach would be Scottish, you’d be more worried about men in white coats than rugby players in black.
Yet here we are, Mike Blair, my old teammate, roommate and captain, helping to restore the DNA of the All Blacks. There is no one more credible, and no one more worthy of this prestigious role with the way he thinks about the game and operates on so many levels.
It’s a bit of a bummer that Mike will be in the opposition coaching box when New Zealand resume theirs Nations Championship campaign in Murrayfield this Saturday. He began his formal coaching journey at the end of his playing career with Townsend’s Glasgow. He stayed and worked under Dave Rennie for the next few seasons, before becoming coach with Townsend in Scotland. Two older men are Mike’s biggest mentors. It will be a strange dynamic for him to help out against each other on Saturday.
Mike took his first head coaching job at Edinburgh four years ago in urgent circumstances, and found himself drowning in the tedious, unrelenting demands of the job. Paperwork, administration, scouting, contracting, negotiations, media duties. We would often exchange texts about his goals to sign in the Top 14, where I spent most of my club career, just as we picked Test matches where we competed together for Scotland in the late 2000s.
Mike needed a managerial figure on his side to remove all off-field debris from his in-tray. He needed support and it was too late for him to come to keep him on the job.
The burden of the role – effectively head coach and director of rugby rolled into one – would have affected anyone coming in so fresh. Mike wanted to be a coach. In particular, he yearned to be a world-class offensive coach. That’s where he felt he could make the biggest impact. He needed a managerial figure by his side to remove all off-field debris from his in-tray. He needed support and it was too late for him to come to keep him on the job.
Scotland have lost an incredible rugby brain and a brilliant man. Could we have cared for him differently? We have only two professional teams and limited opportunities for the development of young, local coaches. Mike’s departure sparked a broader conversation: How can we encourage, develop and get the best out of those coaches who come through this path? Our talent pool is not huge and we cannot afford to waste what we have.
The incestuous nature of the training led Majka Japan and Kobe with Rennie and then to New Zealand and this incredible opportunity. He returns to Scotland managing the biggest brand in rugby, with the most dominant winning percentage of all time, in the capacity he always felt designed for.
I have been friends with Mike for almost 20 years. He is a very intelligent, very witty, and direct guy, with a clean life. His pre-match ritual usually involved vomiting, although I’d like to think he wouldn’t be redecorating the away dressing room at Murrayfield at 2pm. He was, unfortunately, incredibly strapped for money, but had a penchant for sports that was entirely black in nature. He even dominated our ping-pong tournaments.
The French would say ‘il pue de rugby’ – Mike stinks of rugby. He was the first to start the touch games during our warm-up because he loved the sport so much. His ability to create space and bring other people around him into the game was incredible. He was mean with the ball in hand. He had fantastic service from the base. And he could move his eyes and contort his body to show the image to the defender and manipulate them in a certain way. One of the only players I saw capable of similar was Joe Rokokoko, a great All Blacks winger I played against in the Top 14, who told me how Joe Schmidt coached him to twist and deceive with his body shape.
People underestimated how athletic Mike was. He would wear a medium jersey and look like a 3XL because he didn’t enjoy the gym. But he was naturally extremely strong for his slight build. He was fast, never missed a match, completely committed and engaged and tenacious in defense. And so could the jackal.
Scotland have always produced these nuggety scrum-halfs – Roy Laidlaw, Gary Armstrong, Bryan Redpath, Chris Cusiter, Greig Laidlaw – who enjoyed that side of the game. Mike may not have looked like a ‘junk dog’, but he threw himself into the rough stuff just as willingly.
His playing achievements speak for themselves (85 games, 14 as captain). Lions tour), but context is important. Mike did not play in the flamboyant Test side that competed for honours. He managed to become a truly world-class scrum-half at a time when Scotland were playing some pretty dark rugby. He was one of the few players from our old side who could be included in the New Zealand team and flourish. No one would blink. I have no doubt that he has grown up Auckland or Christchurch instead of Edinburgh, he would be an All Black.
Today, given the progress in the way we attack, keep and use the ball, it would be even better to think about him. Some guys would cut across generations – Brian O’Driscoll, Austin Healey, Richie McCaw – through their ability, but you can also tell by the way they talk, they’d be field generals no matter when they played. Mike is in that category.
Twenty one years ago. The last test of Tana Umaga.
A wonderful flourish of class from Mike Blair – a footballer whose vision and skill was in the Blacks’ style – to send Sean Lamont galloping, only for Tana to reel him in.
Blair and Umaga in the ABs coaching box go here next week. https://t.co/RBb2sNMoFI
— Jamie Lyall (@JLyall93) October 29, 2026
Nine Tests into the Rennie era, Mike’s fingerprints are already plastered all over New Zealand. They are more like the All Blacks that my generation grew up idolizing – incredible precision in play, creativity, vision and breakneck pace. The edge they lost in previous coaching regimes has returned. They found their fashion again. And Mike was the chief architect.
During the Greatest Rivalry series, they hammered the Springboks playing their traditional All Black style. They only came off when South Africa got back to work, rolled up our sleeves and did the route one thing no one can match.
There were so many elements to Mike’s detailed coaching. New Zealand mix up their attacking structure, creating different puzzles for the defense to solve. Earlier they became too readable. The All Blacks have players who can make decisions under pressure at the highest level and create chaos. That’s what I would associate with New Zealand rugby. And there’s a real sense of pride in Mike bringing it back: a shinier, slicker, funnier version of the All Blacks.
One day, perhaps not so far in the future, Mike could be in the home coaching box at Murrayfield. Gregor Townsend is expected to move on after the World Cup and Mike would be an obvious target, if it’s something he wants to pursue and something that suits his family. Franco Smith might have something to say about that. And then there’s Clark Laidlaw, another Scot who won New Zealand’s first men’s sevens and this year manages the Super Rugby champions Hurricanes.
From my vantage point on the TV portal this weekend, it will be strange to glance over to my right and see Mike in the exit booth, in a black suit and silver fern, instead of blue with an embossed thistle. It will also fill me with pride.
