Foreign coaches are about as rare in All
Black rugby as the Maui dolphin and the Kakapo parrot, which makes Mike Blair a
unique individual in the Land of the Long White Cloud.
Blair describes his new life as Dave Rennie's attack coach with the
All Blacks, a high-profile and high-pressure job, a unique honour, all the more
welcome because Scottish coaches in elite rugby are desperately thin on the
ground.
Blair is seven Tests into his time in New
Zealand - wins over France, Ireland, Italy and South Africa and three defeats
all against the world champions in the murderous series they called Rugby's
Greatest Rivalry.
In November, Blair, a former Scotland
captain with 85 caps to his name, will return home wearing not the blue of his
homeland but the black of his adopted country. Scotland versus New Zealand at
Murrayfield will be a trippy occasion, he admits.
"I
don't know how it'll feel," he says. "I'll tell you once we're there,
but it'll definitely be weird and cool. I'm looking forward to it."
Blair is now coaching some of the
illustrious backs of their generation - Jordie Barrett, Beauden Barrett, Will
Jordan, Damian McKenzie among others. All iconic All Blacks and all, he says,
fully aware of the threat Scotland pose these days.
It's not lip service, it's proper
respect. "You know, it might have been a different thing if it had been 15
years ago, when I was playing. I've spoken to the guys about Scotland and New
Zealand games in recent years and each player I've spoken to said, 'Geez, that
was a hell of a game'.
"The
respect for Scotland's attacking game is huge. Previously, when I played,
there's an interview, and I can't remember who it was [an All Black], but they
basically couldn't name any of the Scotland players. Now you speak to Jordie
and he's naming everyone in the Scotland backline."
That contest will be seismic, as is
Blair's own story. "I went straight from finishing in Japan [he coached alongside
Rennie in Kobe for three years] on 14 June to starting the job with New Zealand
on 17 June. It's been non-stop from there. Eye-opening. Different. Challenging.
And a lot of fun as well."
Blair and Rennie are tight, of course.
They worked together when the Kiwi was at Glasgow Warriors and renewed their
partnership in Japan. Blair had coached Edinburgh before all of that and left
his position early, unsure of what life had in store for him. It's been a wild
ride since then.
Rennie is his mentor and his champion.
"He's good company. He's got lots of stories. The way he manages is not
suffocating. He offers opinion when he feels that it's necessary, but otherwise
he trusts you to do a job because he's chosen you for a reason.
"He'd
spoken to me in Japan and said he was asked to apply for the New Zealand job.
So he'd asked me at that stage, would it be something that I was interested in
- and I said, yes.
"I
was actually back in Edinburgh and it was the middle of the night when they
decided who was going to be the head coach. I woke up at seven in the morning,
checked my phone and saw that Rens had got the job.
"And
then I didn't hear from him. I'd messaged and said, 'Awesome, well done' and
then kind of waited for him to say, 'We'll have to sort your contract out', but
there was a day's pause because it was difficult with the time difference.
There's a pause and I was like, 'We are going to sort this out…' I was hanging
in the balance a little bit."
Clearly, Rennie has had an enormous
influence on Blair. "He makes you feel really confident about what you do.
Like, I questioned if this would be something I'd be able to add value to. I
had those thoughts and Dave knew I had those thoughts. He reassured me.
"He
stuck his neck out for me - and he wouldn't have done that if he didn't believe
that I'd do a good job. Dave's head's on the line here and he's chosen me to do
that job. I trust him as a rugby man and so I've got to trust the fact that
he's chosen me."
The landscape is different now, the
quality of player he's dealing with is sky high, the rugby IQ through the roof.
"I
was apprehensive about the quality of people and that I couldn't afford to make
a mistake. In Japan, or even with Edinburgh, I'd say, 'Look, this is the plan.
What do you guys think?' And it's like, 'Yeah, cool'. Here it was, 'Why are we doing
this? Would it not be better to do that?' It was fantastic, but at the same
time, it was like, 'I've got to be on it here, because if I'm not, someone's
going to find me out'."
Rennie succeeded Scott Robertson, an
unhappy time for the All Blacks, who felt they lost some identity on his watch.
Blair's first games as attack coach were wins against France, Ireland and Italy
in the summer, then came the head-wreck of four straight Tests against the
Springboks, three in South Africa and one in Baltimore in America.
In sensational style, New Zealand won the
opener in Johannesburg, a five tries to one win that was breathtaking to watch.
The Boks being the Boks won the next three, two of them by narrow margins.
For Blair, though the defeats hurt, there
were signs of progression. New Zealand's attack really fired. They won the try
count over the four Tests, they had more line breaks and beat more defenders.
It was South Africa's suffocating physicality and incredible street smarts that
won them the series, but there was something to build on for Blair in his new
world.
"The
mental and physical burden was pretty high, but I still believe we created a
way of playing that the guys are really passionate about," he adds.
"We've had seven Test matches and we're finding our way.
"It's
pretty tough doing that against the best team in the world, so, it's been cool.
We believe that if we played to the best of our ability, then we would have won
more than one Test match. There's work for us to do, but they [the Springboks]
are certainly not unbeatable."
He has two games against Australia to
come and then it's the journey home and that Test at Murrayfield. A welcome, of
sorts, awaits him.