David Blair admits he was very proud to have helped Edinburgh Academicals preserve their Scottish Hydro Electric Premier One status and is now looking forward to celebrate the club’s 150th anniversary when the Barbarians visit Raeburn Place on Wednesday 9 April 2008, kick off 6pm (ticket hotline 0131 346 5180).

The 22-year-old stand-off turned out for the Stockbridge club and his 19 points played a huge role in the Accies’ ‘Houdini’ act as the side avoided relegation with a 34-18 final day win at Heriots on Saturday.

Now Blair is aiming to toast the club’s success at the forthcoming showpiece friendly against the world famous Baa-Baa’s with his family.

Blair said: “Dan Teague said afterwards that it is just a huge weight off our shoulders. Now we can really go out and enjoy the Baa Baa’s game.

“If we had lost then it wouldn’t have been as enjoyable. Now we can go out and have some fun and play some rugby. We can show people that we are actually a team which should be in the top end of the league rather than the bottom end.

“It is a massive relief for everyone at the club. You could see at the end of the game when we were waiting for the other results just how much it meant to everyone at Accies. It was just pleasing that I could play a part in that.

“My Dad has got a table for the dinner after the Barbarians match and the whole family will be there supporting it. There should be a good crowd at the game; I believe they have already sold about 2,000. So it should be a pretty memorable event.”

Blair admits that, at one point, he thought he would be portrayed as a villain rather than hero when he missed a straightforward penalty at goal.

He said: “With 20 minutes to go, I missed quite an easy kick. It went just to the right of the posts; I just scuffed it and for a while I thought; this is going to come back and haunt me.

“But thankfully we managed to score again quite soon after that, so in the end it didn’t actually matter.”

After injuring his hand in a freak training ground accident, Blair had not played competitive rugby since January and he acknowledges his recall to the Premier One club scene was hugely beneficial.

He said: “It is good to have played 160 minutes in two weeks; it is great to get two full games under my belt because I need to play.”