Blair wins Hadden's vote

Scotland coach Frank Hadden has no qualms about nominating Edinburgh scrum-half Mike Blair as his captain in place of the injured Jason White for Saturday's Six Nations clash with Ireland in Dublin.

Scotland coach Frank Hadden has no qualms about nominating Edinburgh scrum-half Mike Blair as his captain in place of the injured Jason White for Saturday's Six Nations clash with Ireland in Dublin.

White has been ruled out of the side to play at Croke Park because he has not yet fully recovered from his head injury.

Blair has been given the opportunity to captain his country for the first time, and Hadden is confident he has chosen the right man.

“Mike has grown into a leadership role with his club,” said the coach.

“He has some experience of captaincy. I remember appointing him captain of Edinburgh many years ago for a couple of matches, and he's also played outstandingly well this season – so we had no hesitation in offering him the captaincy.”

As for White, Scotland decided to make an early decision.

“I was at Jason's fitness test this morning [Tuesday], and he is still getting headaches when exercising,” Hadden reported.

“Therefore he is unable to play this weekend. We decided to rule him out today and not wait until the last minute on medical advice.”

Hadden chose not to ask regular deputy Chris Paterson to stand in as captain – because his switch from the wing means he will already have much to think about.

“I felt that with him coming in at stand-off and being the main goal-kicker, he had more than enough on his plate,” he explained.

Hadden decided it was worth the risk trying Paterson at half-back, even though the 29-year-old has relatively little recent experience of playing there and did not excel for Gloucester in that position at the weekend.

“He was always going to be a bit rusty,” said Hadden, in attendance for that club match.

“The important thing is that he looked sharp and fresh and threatening, and there was enough in his performance and in what he said during the long chat we had afterwards to make me confident about making this decision.”

Alasdair Strokosch has been brought into the side as a direct replacement for White, and Hadden is confident the big flanker is a worthy replacement.

“It's a like-for-like switch with Alasdair and Jason,” he said.

“We were delighted that he was starting to put some pressure on Jason with the quality of his performances at club level – and he played well coming off the bench on Sunday.”

It is not yet known who will line up alongside Strokosch in the back row. John Barclay cut his hand on a dinner glass last weekend and needed nine stitches, and Hadden will not name his number eight or openside flanker until tomorrow.

“Effectively you would say John Barclay, Allister Hogg, Kelly Brown and Ross Rennie are vying for three positions – seven, eight and 19 [on the bench].

“We've got a number of options available to us – and we'll consider them in a bit more detail once we know what we've got available to us.”

Barclay is not the only player to have suffered misfortune at dinner – Simon Taylor having had food poisoning before a club fixture last weekend and therefore short of match fitness, so not called upon to replace White.

Scott Macleod has replaced Jim Hamilton in the second row.

In the backs, apart from Paterson's selection at stand-off, the major talking point is at outside centre – where Simon Webster has been named ahead of Nick De Luca.

“This doesn't mean we have lost faith in Nick, because he is still on the bench,” Hadden points out.

“We think his time will come again and we're delighted to have him in the squad.”

Webster is primarily a winger, but Hadden believes he can be effective for Scotland in the centre.

“Simon has experience of playing there during the World Cup,” the coach recalled.

“It looks a very strong-running back line, a dangerous back line – and we obviously hope that will be the case this Saturday.”