Six years have elapsed since Mike Blair made his Test debut against Canada and while much has changed much has also remained the same.

Six years have elapsed since Mike Blair made his Test debut against Canada and while much has changed much has also remained the same.

Scotland's captain scored a try that day in Vancouver, but as he readily acknowledged it was otherwise far from what he had envisaged when he grew up dreaming of pulling on a navy-blue jersey.

"It's funny because when you're growing up and thinking of getting your first cap the images are of running out at Murrayfield in front of a packed crowd, scoring a try and winning the match. So mine was a strange kind of debut because it was in Canada in front of a couple of thousand people," said the scrum-half, who will win his 52nd at Pittodrie on Saturday.

"Obviously, I was amazingly proud to get my first cap and I scored a try, but we lost the game so there were mixed emotions."

The match was a huge embarrassment for the touring Scots and while there are only three fellow survivors of that side in Scotland's line-up for this weekend - Nathan Hines, Allan Jacobsen and Simon Taylor - Blair recognises that there is much to be drawn from that experience in relation to this week's match.

"We'd played them the previous week as a Scotland XV against what they called Rugby Canada, which was pretty much their full-strength team, and we'd won by two or three tries, playing pretty well in the process," he recalled.

"That kind of goes to show the strength of what we are up against. They've shown against Wales and in parts against Ireland what they're capable of doing. The big test for us is to show what progress we've made. The games against New Zealand and South Africa we talked a lot about dominating the breakdown and the collisions. I think this is an opportunity to show we can dominate an opposition and see what happens on the back of that as opposed to always talking about what the opposition can do. We've got to have a ruthless edge."

Everything points to the likelihood of the Scots facing a real battle against opponents who are always rugged and tend to get better the more they are together as their results suggest, a heavy beating from Ireland having been followed by a much tighter battle with the Welsh.

"Whenever you go on a tour there's that aspect that you're living together . . . you're bonding," Blair acknowledged. "They'll be training together day in and day out as well, so because they won't normally have that much time together, because while the vast majority are professional players some are amateurs, this does give them a big opportunity. However, we've been really pleased with what we've done over the last couple of weeks. We feel we're moving our game along and feel that we've got better over the past couple of weeks as well.

"I think it's going to be a good game and the first 15 or 20 minutes will be really feeling each other out and hopefully we'll have a good, enjoyable game."

In those terms Blair has happier memories of Saturday's venue than of Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver, having been part of a side that enjoyed a great May evening in recording Scotland's first ever win over the Barbarians there three years ago on Frank Hadden's debut as Scotland coach. Not that the captain is expecting it to be quite the same.

"It was lovely sunny weather, whereas I understand there's a possibility of snow this weekend," he said. "It's a slightly narrower pitch, 62 metres wide I think, so that's where the physical element of the game's going to come in. There's not quite as much room as there is out here at Murrayfield. So the confrontation side is going to be even more important because of that. I remember it being a really welcoming crowd that got behind us very early on.

"It was a game we weren't necessarily expected to win, but we played some really good stuff and won by 35, 40 points in the end. So we've got good memories of it and I understand that ticket sales have been going reasonably well, with 16,500 and a 20,000 capacity, so hopefully by the time the game comes we'll have a pretty well full stadium to play in."

As to his expectations of his side, there is no risk of taking the Canadians lightly, on the basis of his own memories of playing them or of having watched them challenge the Welsh, and Blair is determined to treat this match as being at the same level of importance as the past fortnight against the world's top two.

"This is the test," he said. "It's a measure to see how far we've come, how far we've matured as a team and a squad. There's no reason why we shouldn't be as intense in this game as in the first two games. It's about us setting the standards, setting our own standards and living up to them."