Blair Kinghorn: ‘You're always p****d off… No-one's ever happy not playing’

Blair Kinghorn believes greater competition for places has put Scotland in a healthier position heading into the November block of Nations Championship matches as the countdown to next year’s Rugby World Cup begins in earnest.

The 29-year-old Toulouse star has largely been Gregor Townsend’s go-to full-back – when available – for the Scots’ biggest Tests since the international retirement of Stuart Hogg just before the last World Cup.

Since playing home and away against France in the warm-up matches for that 2023 tournament, Kinghorn has started 19 of Scotland’s last 39 Tests, even if sporadic injuries, unavailability and lapses in form have allowed Kyle Rowe, (nine Tests at full-back), Tom Jordan (six), Harry Paterson (three) and Ollie Smith (two) to also don the 15 jersey during that period.

The increased options at Townsend’s disposal saw Kinghorn omitted from the Scotland 23 for the first two matches of this year’s Six Nations Championship before he returned for the wins over Wales and France and the final match against Ireland, his 68th cap.

“It’s always tough if you’re not playing,” he reflected. “Everyone wants to play, especially at the start of tournaments and big games. But if you’re not playing well enough, you’re not playing well enough. That’s the great thing about having competition in the squad – if you’re not playing well, you’re out.

“You’re always pissed off [when you get dropped]. No-one’s ever happy not playing. And that’s a good thing. You want everyone to be competitive, you want everyone to be fighting for that place.

“But what you’ve got to do is just go back to your game. I went back and played for Toulouse [on 15 February, the day after missing out on Scotland’s Calcutta win over England] and we had a good win against Stade Francais away.

“Then Gregor thought I’d played well enough and I managed to start the last three games in succession. You’ve got to just be playing at a high level. If you’re not, you’ve got to accept that you won’t be playing. That’s good that the coaches do that. It makes it healthier in the squad.”

Kinghorn has thrived with the extra competition and quality at Toulouse since joining the French champions from Edinburgh in December 2023 and helping them to their latest three of four straight Top 14 crowns.

One more title this season would be unprecedented, a historic first in the 134 years of the French championship and one better than the four-in-a-row of Toulouse’s great 1990s generation.

“Every time that you’re playing for Toulouse, there’s a massive expectation that you’re going to win,” Kinghorn said. “It’s almost like if you don’t win anything, it’s a failure of a season for sure. And if you don’t make a final, it’s definitely a failure of a season. So the expectations and the high demand that all the coaches and the players have on each other is that you’ve got to win something at the end of the year for it to be successful.

“Having done that the last four years, doing five would be something that would put us on a different level. It’s never been done before. It would be cool to be the only Toulouse side and the first side to have done it five in a row.”

More immediately, Scotland take on New Zealand, Australia and Japan at Murrayfield over the next three weeks before a final play-off match on the last weekend of November down in Twickenham.

Fixture

Nations Championship

Scotland

06:10

7 Nov 26

New Zealand

All Stats and Data

Having been given the summer off after his near-three years of non-stop rugby, including the 2025 British and Irish Lions tour of Australia in which he featured in five matches including two Tests, Kinghorn is hoping to reclaim the Scotland No 15 spot against the All Blacks.

That won’t be straightforward given Kyle Rowe’s sparkling form for Glasgow – after starting the July Tests against Argentina and South Africa – and Tom Jordan’s claims, but Kinghorn believes his extended summer break will benefit him in the run-up to the World Cup.

“Me and Gregor had a conversation,” he said. “He thought it would be best for me just to stay at home and recover after a bit of a tough season coming back straight from the Lions and then going straight into a season. So it was good to have a proper rest. It wasn’t necessarily about having a proper off-season, it was more about having a proper pre-season, because last year I had three weeks off and then it was kind of straight into the Top 14 season.

“So this season I managed to have that four or five weeks off and then have an actual pre-season, which is good. So then you kind of feel a bit more hungry going back into games. The body’s kind of feeling good, so it was nice to have a proper pre-season.”

After easing back into action with a 15-minute outing off the bench against Bordeaux in mid-September and a start against Vannes the following week, Kinghorn suffered a calf strain which kept him out for a month before returning last weekend – at fly-half – in a 38-33 win over Perpignan.

“It was fun,” he added. “I got the ball a lot and we won, so it was a good crack. I had a couple of games at 10 for Toulouse last year but that was the first time this year, so it felt good to be back and feeling healthy.”