HOWEVER you look at it, seeing Mike Blair in a Glasgow Warriors shirt is going to take a bit of getting used to.

For more than a decade he proudly wore the red and black of Edinburgh, even donning those amazing floral tops that some marketing bright spark thought would lift spirits at Christmas. The pale blue of Glasgow? No bookie would have taken the bet.

Yet, here we are, overlooking the pitch at Scotstoun Stadium, and in he walks looking as though he had been wearing the kit his entire playing career. "Yes, it is a strange feeling," he admits. "A lot of people ask what is the difference, having played for Edinburgh for 10-11 seasons and then coming here but it has not felt like that at all. The fact that I have been away for three years has probably helped.

"I don't really know a lot of the guys here, especially during this first training block, where guys are away at the World Cup. It has the feel of a new club but with a bit of familiarity as well, with Gregor [Townsend, the head coach], who I know from before, as well as Lee Jones, Gregor Hunter, Chris Fusaro who I played with at Edinburgh. There has been a nice bit of familiarity but at the same time that feeling of a new club and that is a situation I quite enjoyed being in."

In truth, he would probably feel just as much of a stranger walking into the Edinburgh changing room these days with pretty much the entire playing staff and all the coaches different from his time. It may have been only three years since he left for France, but there has been a revolution at his old club while he was away.

The other thing that must feel a bit strange is sitting on the outside and hearing all the tales about World Cup preparations which for the first time since he was a teenager he is not personally involved in. Again Blair seems to be taking it all in his stride. After three goes at it in 2003, 2007 and 2011, he has seen just about all there is to see. As the only one from that 2003 squad still playing at the top level, however, he might still have had a role to play had he not decided to retire from international rugby at the start of 2013.

"I can safely say I have not had any regrets about stopping," he maintains. "I still say the time was right for me. It is often difficult to explain how you feel about things but I felt it was the right time to stop. Since stopping I don't think my career path has gone the way I expected it to go, but in terms of life-experience - being able to play a bit in the Premiership and play a bit in France has helped me learn a lot."

Anyway, it is all changed days form the time they were told to grab their gumshields and head for the greenhouse in the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens as the Heath-Robinson alternative to hot-weather training. "Things have changed a lot and you look at the pre-season and back at 2003, 2007 and 2011 and how different they were; the change in sport science and detail put into every pre-season, with lactate tests and all sorts of stuff that goes on, makes sure there is no hiding place any more, which for some of us isn't great," he says.

"I've heard bits and bobs from guys in France and it sounds like a pretty tough shift but they are saying that now it is done it is great to have it in the bank with the experience and the training they did out there."

Now his role is changing. His first task is to help spearhead the Glasgow Warriors attack on the early games as they try to defend the Guinness PRO12 title they won in May. Then he is looking to become more of a mentor to the players around him - a task he has already been fulfilling with Henry Pyrgos, one of the four scrum halves in the Scotland squad.

He admits that a few years ago he might have struggled to take on that role with players who are direct competitors for places in the team but as he edges closer and closer to moving out of playing and into coaching he thinks he is ready.

"At my point in my career, I want to help guys and want Glasgow to be as successful as they were this year in the PRO12 and hopefully push things on in Europe as well. It might have been a different answer if you had asked me 10 or 12 years ago about giving tips and that side of things, but now I feel part of the reason for me being brought in is to help these guys. That is something I am very comfortable doing," he explains.