Mike Blair: ‘I regret my time with the British and Irish Lions; the All Blacks is an opportunity to fix that’
Mike Blair playing for the British and Irish Lions in 2009 and an inset of him as Edinburgh head coach.
Mike Blair sees the All Blacks coaching job as an opportunity to ‘fix’ his regrettable stint with the British and Irish Lions as a player.
The 44-year-old ex-Scotland scrum-half was initially left out of the 2009 Lions squad to tour South Africa but received a call-up following the injury to Tomas O’Leary – his sole nod for the famous touring squad during his 15-year-long career.
He went on to represent the Lions in the matches against the Royal XV, Sharks and Southern Kings, but was unable to twist Ian McGeechan’s arm and earn a Test appearance, with the head coach preferring Mike Phillips and Harry Ellis instead.
Playing down Rennie’s offer
Blair, who captained Scotland during his career, was overlooked for future Lions selections and says that he regrets his time with the touring team.
Whilst he has had prior international coaching experience with Scotland, he sees his new role as an assistant to new All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie as a chance to make the most of a massive opportunity, which he was unable to do during his playing career.
He disclosed that after detailing how Rennie began conversations about him being part of his coaching team, and his wife’s reaction.
“So, he said, ‘Do you want to uh do you want to catch up?’ And you usually with Rens, there’s a reason why you catch up,” Blair told the Aotearoa Rugby Podcast.
“So my mind was kind of worrying as to what this could be. I met him, and we got the small talk out of the way. And he said, ‘Look, I’m considering applying for the job.’ He said, ‘I’m not 100% going to go for it at this stage, but I’m looking at what it would look like and how you would feel about being the attack coach?’
“It was one of the things I thought he might have been asking about, but hadn’t really planned an answer at all. So, I just smiled and said, ‘Let me think about it.’
“You want to play it cool, don’t you, at the start? So played it cool, said ‘let’s have a think about it’. My wife and daughter were planning to go back to Edinburgh at the end of this year anyway. My son’s already in Scotland, so that was a bit of a consideration, but it didn’t take long to consider.”
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Mrs Blair’s reaction and Lions disappointment
While the Kobe attack coach played down the opportunity when speaking to Rennie, his wife had an entirely different reaction.
“Well, when I told my wife before I could finish saying what I’d been asked to do, she was like, ‘You’ve got to do it, you’ve got to do it, you’re doing it, we’ll make it work,'” Blair continued.
“So, I don’t know whether she was just happy to get a little bit of a break from me. But, no, she was thrilled about it as well. One of the best bits for me was being able to tell other people. The reactions I got from family and friends. But I’ve also got the back of my mind that this is a nice ice job role to have, but my work starts once we get in.”
He concluded: “I had big regrets when I got chosen for the British and Irish Lions, and I was pleased I’d been selected for it, but I didn’t make the most of my opportunity.
“I regret my time with the British and Irish Lions. So, I see this as an opportunity to fix that to have another go at this, where I’ve been given this great job role and great title, but my work starts once we get in, and the results start happening, and I see what we’re able to achieve in attack.”
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Blair has signed on to be Rennie’s attack coach through to the 2027 Rugby World Cup. New Zealand Rugby will seemingly decide between now and then whether the current staff should stay on beyond the tournament in Australia.
If they decide to extend the coaching group’s contracts, Blair would get the opportunity to coach against the Lions with the tourists arriving in New Zealand in 2029.
