Last weekend’s 15-9 victory over England came as a relief to everyone involved in the Scotland squad after their disappointing start to this season’s RBS 6 Nations.

Scotland had slumped to heavy defeats against France, Wales and Ireland in the championship, and head coach Frank Hadden was coming under increasing pressure.

However, the victory over England will count for nothing if Hadden’s men cannot back it up with an even better performance against the Azzurri at the Stadio Flaminio in Rome.

It is a match which will decide who will finish with the wooden spoon, and Scotland dare not lose - having been rocked by Italy’s Murrayfield victory last season.

“It’s definitely been slightly more relaxed, but everyone is still really focused on this Italy game,” said Blair.

“You can’t just forget about the championship after one good win. We’ve really got to build on Saturday’s performance which was a step up from previous games.”

The scrum-half, 26, added: “There were some very pleasing aspects to the England game - the defence in particular was very good.

“But the squad has talked this week about having to play better than we did against England if we are to beat Italy.

“They are one of the more aggressive teams in the championship and they play a good brand of rugby as well.

“They’ve scored some great tries, they’ve made a lot of really good opportunities, they spread the ball wide, they’ve got some really dangerous players and they’ll be extremely fired up in front of their own crowd.

“Their pack is very combative with a strong scrum, the driving line-out has been one of their key weapons and they’ve got a couple of great centres as well in (Mirco) Bergamasco and (Gonzalo) Canale.

“They’ve got players capable of individual moments of magic and they seem to be gelling well together as a team."

Blair emphasised that Scotland must be clinical in attack and well-drilled in defence on Saturday.

“A lot of the games this season have been low-scoring affairs, so we are going to have to be tight on our discipline and not give away any stupid penalties,” he said.

“And when we get chances we’re going to have to make sure we take them.

“We know that they are going to score some points against us, and that means we are going to have to get some points on the board as well.”