Mike Blair claims he will have no regrets whatever happens but Saturday's Heineken Cup semi-final between Edinburgh and Ulster may show whether he was right or wrong to turn down the Irish province's overtures when he decided to stay in his home city two years ago.
There is some irony in the fact that the Scotland scrum-half has now decided the time is right to move on and, having been linked with a move to Perpignan, he has confirmed he will be leaving the club he has been with throughout his professional career at the end of this season.
Having striven so long and so hard in an Edinburgh jersey he is excited about the prospect of making one final major challenge to bring silverware to the club and by the way they have already seized the chance to make history. However, it is a curious twist that, having shown such loyalty to what has been a badly under-resourced club, he now finds the route to the biggest prize in club rugby barred by the team that openly expressed its ambition when trying to lure him across the Irish Sea.
"Sometimes when you re-sign for a club you say that you want to win something with the club, but at the back of your mind you're thinking 'what exactly is it that we're going to win, what exactly can we achieve?' This year, after a couple of Heineken games, because things had gone right and we'd gutsed out a couple of great wins, that was when belief started coming in and that was when you really thought hold, on a second, we are progressing in this," he said.
"When we got Toulouse at home we were fairly happy with that. We'd beaten them at home before – a long time ago I know – but we've beaten Stade, Castres and Perpignan at home. We weren't unhappy with that draw.
"We'll definitely be massive underdogs for this semi-final but there's a lot of pressure on Ulster. When I re-signed for Edinburgh a couple of years ago, I had some interest from Ulster and part of what they said was that they wanted to win the European Cup within a couple of years.
"There's a lot of pressure on them, and a lot of pressure on Leinster and Clermont too because of the squads they've got. We've just snuck in under the radar."
The result will not, however, affect Blair's own assessment of the decision he made two years ago.
"I've never regretted any of the decisions I made," he said. "You could become a pretty negative guy if you're always looking at what could have been. I've really enjoyed my extra two years at Edinburgh, having my family around me, coming to watch games here, getting to know the new guys coming into the squad and getting to this stage of the tournament, a semi-final with this squad."
Nor is he concerned that agonising over his future has affected his form this season.
"I've not thought about it a huge amount," Blair went on. "My first big decision was whether I should go or not and once I'd made that decision it made things easier for me. It meant I was definitely going to be moving away and definitely trying something different and that almost took pressure off my shoulders.
"I've just turned 31. I don't know how many years I've got . . . three, maybe four maximum. It's about regretting the things you do as opposed to regretting the things you don't.
"I'm sure I'd have had a fantastic time if I'd stayed with Edinburgh until I was 35 then stopped, but I think there's that thing at the back of your mind saying rugby's such an opportunity to travel a bit and get into a community easily that it would be a regret, even if it didn't work out, that you didn't try it. Speaking to Chris Paterson about it when he went to Gloucester, he was very passionate about saying when he came back up that he didn't regret doing it at all and he loved the fact that he tried something different. That's the stage I'm at."
So it is all about this one moment in time and dealing with those who might have been his team-mates. "Ulster's main attribute is their power game," is Blair's assessment.
"There are a lot of big men in their pack and they'll look to sap the energy out of us. They do have some quality ball players as well. [Ian] Humphreys is an incredibly under-rated player. He's got a great left foot and he's a silky player when he's on the front foot.
"So obviously we've got to stop their juggernaut forwards, get under their skin, make the ball they're getting slow ball and put pressure on Humphreys as well. That's important because if you can get to Humphreys then, as with all 10s, it's going to put a lot of pressure on them.
"You want to put the pressure back on to Ulster and if you can do that with a try, or by getting three, six, nine points, that's exactly what Ulster did to Munster. They hadn't had a huge amount of ball and Pienaar kicked two goals from the halfway line, which obviously put the pressure on the opposition. So obviously you need to make the most of your opportunities the way we did when we got seven up against Toulouse and they were chasing the game."
