Future bright for Scotland claims Nicol

Former Scotland scrum-half Andy Nicol has claimed the future of the international number nine jersey was safe in the hands of Edinburgh Rugby’s Mike Blair.

Nicol, who announced his retirement from rugby at the end of the season, had dominated the scrum-half position along with fierce rivals Gary Armstrong and Bryan Redpath since the late 1980s.

But with only Redpath now remaining in the Scotland set-up, Nicol was confident the emerging Blair would eventually make the breakthrough.

Nicol said: “Mike has the potential to be in the same bracket as the three of us, although you can only talk about potential at the moment because he’s still in his first year as a professional.

“I’ve witnessed a few of his games this year and he’s got every ingredient to be a top-class player.

“And he’s got the one ingredient that you could argue Gary, Bryan and myself never had and that is out-and-out pace.”

Nicol admitted he wanted to coach his former club Dundee High School Former Pupils, where he had some of his best times in the game.

The Glasgow player will step up business interests when he quits at the end of the season but insists he is keeping his career options open.

He said: “Everyone will think my best times were with Bath, and I did have some great times down there, but I always regard my spell at Dundee, when we were coming through the divisions, as a great time for me.

“We were the first Dundee team to get into the top league and it was the same time as I got my first cap so the whole experience was amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

“I was playing with the friends I had grown up with, and for my home town and it was very special.

“So I would love to coach Dundee and put something back into the rugby up there. But Jason Hewett has done a fantastic job at Mayfield and I think he’s there for another year so I don’t think it’ll happen initially, but certainly in the future I’d love to go back.

“But I’m going into coaching very open minded and I’ll see what happens. There are definitely career opportunities there and I want to go as far as I can.”

Nicol admitted he knew it was time to quit when he realised he would not realise his dream of playing in the World Cup.

The former Bath player came close on several occasions but, having been left out of Ian McGeechan’s plans, he knew his time had gone.

“My goal had always been to appear in the World Cup,” said Nicol.

“When it became fairly evident I wasn’t going to be in Scotland’s plans, the spark which drove me on all those years diminished.”