Mike Blair appointed All Blacks attack coach

In what might be something of a surprise until you remember how long he’s worked with the new Kiwi head coach Dave Rennie, Mike Blair’s appointment as All Blacks attack coach was announced yesterday.

Yes, that Mike Blair. The guy dancing in his jockstrap after the 2006 Calcutta Cup victory.

Following stints playing with both Edinburgh (169 appearances) and latterly Glasgow (12 appearances), Blair’s early coaching work at Glasgow Warriors as a skills coach under both Gregor Townsend and Rennie built his reputation as a sharp attacking thinker. His time in a Scotland shirt – he retired as the most capped half-back in Scottish history with 85 – was often characterised by line breaks and awareness of space well ahead of most of his teammates, and also in sharp contrast of playing style to the cohort of class scrum-halves Scotland had at the time: Chris Cusiter, Rory Lawson and Greig Laidlaw.

His coaching path moved into the Scotland setup and then sideways/(backwards?) into the Edinburgh head coach role, where his first season displayed instant zip and ambition, even if results did not always follow.

His departure from Edinburgh at the end of the following season raised a few questions at the time. Blair spoke about the “huge demands” of a head coaching role and the desire to focus more on actual skills coaching, than the multiple threads a head coach has to keep track of. After a half joking note in a WhatsApp chat with Rennie – who had just lost his Australia job – Blair packed in the capital club and headed to link up with his former Glasgow boss.

Working with Kobe Steelers, he has been part of a side that leans into tempo and transition, with an emphasis on quick ball and support lines, making them among the more productive attacking teams in the league. Blair was joined in Rennie’s team by former colleagues Pete Murchie and Dan McFarland.

In terms of rugby coaching jobs, the All Blacks coaching ticket would be the pinnacle traditionally and especially for a non New Zealander (needless to say the South Africans would argue the point, though their snapping up Kiwi Tony Brown who was also high on a lot of wish lists down under may have given Blair an opening). Blair may have found the head coach role all-consuming, but coaching in New Zealand will be a pressure cooker environment all of its own if the results don’t come.

Blair could now follow in the footsteps of Hurricanes head coach Clark Laidlaw as another Scottish coach making serious inroads abroad, in New Zealand in particular. From a Scottish perspective, it is another reminder that coaching development does not always follow a straight line from the Borders (or wherever) straight up to the doors of Murrayfield.

It also begs the question with Blair down under, Murchie joining Wales as defence coach in the summer, and Sean Everitt given a contract extension despite a team in freefall, are the SRU doing enough to attract our highly thought of home-grown coaching talents back into the fold?

Or: do they even want to come? While our current generation of backs are arguably pretty proficient in Blair’s style of rapid, skill-based counterattacking, the picture for the next generation is less clear.

Let’s hope Mike will be back to help one day, but for now we wish him all the best in Dave Rennie’s team. Except the next time we have to play them, which is in… November.