Chris Paterson will play at stand-off and Rory Lamont at full-back against Ireland on Saturday in a bid to improve Scotland's offensive capability. In what looks as physically imposing a XV as Scotland has fielded, Jason White returns to reclaim the captaincy from Paterson, while Mike Blair also makes his comeback from long-term injury.

The re-introductions of White and Blair were all but automatic since they desperately need game time ahead of the World Cup, which is now a little more than a month away. However, in selecting Paterson and Lamont where they are, Frank Hadden, the head coach, has complied with, if not necessarily bowed to, public demand.

In the past he has expressed reservations about selecting both in those positions. However, Lamont was rated outstanding as Glasgow Warriors last line of defence and, frequently, the spark to their counter-attacking game last season, while the campaign for Paterson to be used as an international playmaker has been a saga to put the SRU's dispute with his former club Edinburgh in the shade. "It's vital for us that we take advantage of anything we've got to make things difficult for the opposition and Chris is definitely a very different stand-off to Dan Parks or Gordon Ross," said Hadden.

He comes into a back-line that has a very different feel to that which Hadden has tended to favour down the years.

The coach once said that he liked to have as many stand-offs as possible in his side. Now he seems to be looking to get as many strike runners into the side as possible, in line with the popular argument that Scotland's priority must be to do what opponents least want them to.

As, statistically, the best goal-kicker in modern Test rugby (having solved a Scottish crisis in that department), it is inconceivable that Paterson would not be in any starting XV. However, while lightning fast by the standards of most international No.10s, he does not have the pace or raw power of some of his colleagues. Shifting him infield means opponents cannot simply focus on preventing Scotland from going wide.

As ever, Paterson was phlegmatic, maintaining that he is happy to play wherever selected while good-humouredly accusing the media of having consistently let that message "go in one ear and out the other" down the years. Yet the more knowledgeable have always accepted that to be his view, perhaps to a fault, since his willingness to put team first has made it easy for coaches to treat him as they have.

Whereas at the last World Cup he found himself thrown in at No.10 for the last two crucial matches, this time he has had a full summer of preparation for the role.

"There's a huge scrutiny on the 10, a lot of it unfair, but I don't expect that to change," Paterson observed shrewdly.

He knows the challenge is to find more of a cutting edge.

"We've maybe been a bit predictable in the last couple of years, which has come not from planning, but from our execution not being good enough," Paterson noted.

In partnering him with Blair the coach, perhaps inadvertently, reunited the combination that helped bring him arguably his greatest success as a professional coach.

While the Calcutta Cup win against England last season stands as a great achievement in a one off match, Hadden's finest campaign was surely when he guided Edinburgh to the Heineken Cup quarter-final in 2003/04. For his parting, in putting his injury horrors behind him, Blair has little doubt that they can combine as well as they did then.

"We've not played together at 9 and 10 since that Heineken Cup run but I'm looking forward to it," said the scrum-half who has had seven months out with shoulder trouble.

"I suppose he's a bit more unpredictable than Parks or Ross. Dan has a great kicking game but less of a running game. Mossy Paterson maybe doesn't have a classic kicking game but he is very good there and brings a lot with his running and his distribution. Gordon is also more of a classic stand off but Mossy brings something a little bit different."

So, too, does the younger Lamont who joins brother Sean in the starting line-up for the first time in two years having apparently quashed Hadden's doubts about his ability to play full-back.

"I think I'm swaying his opinion having played nearly all my rugby there for Glasgow last season," he said.

"I'm hoping he's now viewing me as a full-back and it's the only position I've run at during the summer."

The inclusion of Rob Dewey at outside centre alongside - as against France in March - Andy Henderson in an exceedingly muscular midfield, is further evidence of a change of outlook.

Still inexperienced he is a strong runner with a nose for tries he, too, knows he has much to prove, noting that Hadden has told him he has to add more subtlety to his game than simply blasting a way through.

Saying which the pack White leads is clearly designed to bring a combination of raw aggression and physicality.

While the captain is reunited with Ally Hogg and Simon Taylor to re-create what was the strongest back-row unit in the 2006 Five Nations Championship, that is most obvious at lock.

Previously Hadden has said he sees Nos 4 and 5 as quite distinct positions, with Scott Murray, Al Kellock and Scott MacLeod contesting the former as Nathan Hines and Jim Hamilton vie for the other. In that context fielding Hines ñ regardless of Irish sensitivities following their groundless accusations that he choked Ronan O'Gara when the sides met in March - and Hamilton together is another significant change of tack.