The Blair switch project
Ex-Scots scrum-half is relishing transition to club and national coach to ensure next generation don’t make the mistakes he did
THE interview clock is moving into the red zone. The final phase should be the attempt to extricate oneself from the depths of a leather chair at Scotstoun Stadium.
But then Mike Blair makes the sort of sudden, dramatic intervention that is the defining characteristic of the eternal scrum-half.
‘I have thought of one,’ says the Glasgow Warriors and Scotland assistant coach. ‘When I was nominated for World Player of the Year in 2008. That was something that struck a chord with me and I was really proud of that.’
The tape is checked later. It has taken the best part of an hour for Blair to come up with the highlight of his career.
He laughs at this realisation. He is a master of self-reflection and a victim of it. He accepts these truths but that doesn’t mean he cannot find the humour in it all.
‘Some people look back on their playing careers and find it really easy to pick out the big moments,’ he says. ‘It sounds morbid but I look at the missed opportunities rather than the positive things. I don’t know if that is just me as a person or what.
‘I remember someone saying to me that the difference between a good golfer and a bad golfer is the good golfer comes off the course talking about his bad shots and the poor golfer comes off talking about his good shots.’
Blair, at 37, can look back on a playing career that garnered 85 caps, a European semi-final with Edinburgh, a man-of-the-match winning performance as Scotland captain against England in 2008 and a professional career that took him to France and England and earned him a British and Irish Lions jersey.
Yet he says: ‘I see missed opportunities. As a coach myself now, I see I would have been a frustrating player to coach, how I could have made more of my talent. That sounds very depressing.’
This merciless self-reflection, though, has a purpose.
‘You wish you could do things better as a player and a coach,’ adds Blair. ‘As a scrum-half, you are involved in a lot of the action and when games go well a lot is down to what you have done well. But when games go badly, a lot of that is down to you, too.
‘I went through a barren patch with the Scotland team for ten years, so I always think back on what I could have done differently.
‘I have to get that message across to the players now so that when they are older like me, they are not thinking back and saying: “I wish I could have done something a little bit differently”.
The past informs Blair’s present. He is aware of the pressure of top-class rugby. He was once a retcher. He is now an anxious yet focused watcher.
‘It was a strange one,’ he says in regard to the tension of playing professional rugby.
‘I didn’t feel nervous in the vast majority of my career. But I was always sick before games. I don’t know why. I was a dry retcher. One of my team-mates had the same and went to see a hypnotist. He never had the issue again.’ So did Blair seek the same solution? ‘No, I sort of wondered that, if I wasn’t retching, was I truly up for the game?’ It is a telling observation. Everything is assessed and analysed. Blair can even look a retching self in the mirror. He breaks the mood with a relaxed aside. ‘I don’t retch as a coach before games,’ he explains. The imperative of running a match from No 9 has been replaced by what seems a humbler task. ‘I run the water for Glasgow and Scotland. You are the link between the head coach and the players,’ he says. ‘It’s an important role and you must be switched on. You have info coming into your ear and are watching what is going on in front of you.’ The information is specific. It must be passed on quickly and accurately. Blair, now in only his second year as a coach, has been given the responsibility by coaches Gregor Townsend with the national team and Dave Rennie at Glasgow. Both famously adhere to the highest standards in preparation and in recruiting staff.
Blair repeatedly describes himself as ‘privileged’ but his fast tracking as a coach may just have other causes.
One rugby journalist informed me that Blair was considered the ‘best thinker on the game’ by his team-mates. He was always a striver, too.
He informed Townsend before the 2011 World Cup that he wanted to work on his passing.
Townsend and Blair then practised that aspect of his play in dozens of extra training sessions leading up to the tournament. He recalls moments like this and the nomination for the IRB World Player of the Year in 2008 without the comforting warmth of gentle nostalgia.
‘Self-reflection is probably the most important part of learning, finding out what you can do better, what people respond to,’ he says. ‘I’ve gone into coaching straight from a player, so you need to pick things up pretty quickly. It is a privileged position so early in my career.’
He admits his role as a Scotland captain and a British and Irish Lion gives him a profile, but adds: ‘In a couple of years, that fades and you are valued on what you do as a coach. I’ve my foot in the door but I need to show I am a capable coach.’
The immediate challenge comes tonight as Glasgow face Edinburgh in the 1872 Cup showdown. He
I see missed opportunities... I see now, as a coach myself, how I would have been a frustrating player to coach
conceded this match has ‘an extra edge’, and adds: ‘We haven’t had the best of records against edinburgh recently, they are playing some good stuff. We hear about that as their coach, Richard Cockerill, enjoys himself in press conferences.’ This is said without a hint of waspishness. Blair’s purpose is to help deliver a Glasgow victory that would put them into their home semi-final of the Pro 14 with the momentum of a win rather than on the back of a defeat against rivals. ‘We’ve had a few disappointing weeks, so we have stuff we want to put right. We want to play with our customary intensity,’ he says. Blair will watch, his own interventions restricted to passing messages and handing out bottles of water, a job far removed from his one-time role as the orchestrator of play. ‘The difference between playing and coaching is stark,’ he says. ‘As coaches, we have done the majority of the work before the game. The players do their homework but, basically, their work is on the pitch.
‘As a coach, the pressure on me is different. The work is about analysis, previewing matches. If you miss something or are not prepared, then…’
The implication is that Blair does not view this failure lightly.
‘I am very self-critical,’ he says. ‘There must be an understanding you can’t cover everything — but you must try to do as much as you can.
‘You hope everyone understands what you have said during the week. But I am not a massive fan of watching matches.’
So why become a coach? It is time for more self-reflection.
‘One of the main reasons is that rugby is all I know,’ he says. ‘I felt in my playing career I had a good understanding of the game and, as a captain, I thought I had good leadership ability, which would transfer across to coaching.
‘I would have regretted not giving it a go. I could be in a classroom teaching and I would be thinking: “I wonder what I would have been like as a coach”.
This is distilled Blair. The perceived past impacting on the pressing present.