As he sits in the garden of his modern and luxurious French home, it is soon obvious how quickly Scotland ace Blair Kinghorn has accustomed to life in Toulouse.
That much is evident by the fact that despite the mid-September temperatures still touching the early twenties, the 27-year-old is wearing a pullover.
‘It’s all been sunshine and rainbows so far, eh?’ Kinghorn tells Mail Sport in an exclusive interview. That it has.
In fact, to date, Kinghorn’s TOP14 switch couldn’t have gone better. Remarkably, he is yet to lose with his new club, winning all 17 matches in which he has been involved since joining from Edinburgh in December last year for what was a move of a lifetime.
That unbeaten run involved a French domestic and Champions Cup double last season. ‘It’s quite mental to be honest,’ Kinghorn says of his Toulouse winning streak.
Scotland ace Blair Kinghorn’s dream switch to Toulouse could not have gone better
Kinghorn is still to taste defeat at his club and has won all 17 matches he has been involved in
‘I was mentioning it to the boys the other day and having a laugh about it. They pointed out I’ve missed some of the hard away games. They say I only want to play European matches!
‘I don’t think the run brings pressure. A loss will come one day but so far, it’s only been good. Playing here has made me feel more confident about my game.
‘The coaches have had faith in me to start big matches. It’s been nice to have that, but I feel this season is more important for me than last.
‘I came here and rode the wave as a new signing who won the TOP14 and the Champions Cup and I still haven’t lost. That’s amazing, but I need to back it up.
‘I don’t want to be seen as a fluke. I feel like that’s what’s driving me. It would be easy to sit back and relax after winning two trophies in my first half a season.
‘But if I don’t keep pushing on to stay in this team, it would be a waste.’
Kinghorn has grown and grown quickly in his nine months in France, both as a player and a person. Such development is good news not only for him, but also for Toulouse and Scotland.
‘In Edinburgh, I was so used to living in my flat or at my mum’s house. I’d never had my own garden,’ Kinghorn says, surveying his new, lavish French lawn. ‘Now I’ve got to maintain this!
‘In one corner of the garden, the swimming pool has been recently covered for the winter after a long summer of use. Throughout June, July and August it is common for the heat in Toulouse to be regularly in the region of 35 degrees.
In the other corner of the garden, Kinghorn’s robotic lawn mower has crashed. Kinghorn shares his new life in France with partner Dina, cat Tiger, and dog Pepsi.
He shares his new glamourous life in France with his partner Dina at their luxury home
Kinghorn has grown quickly in his nine months in France, both as a player and a person
‘We had communal gardens in my first flat when I moved out of home and there was an elderly lady who looked after it,’ Kinghorn says with a laugh. ‘She did a great job!
‘I’ve got the mower to help me out here, but it got stuck as it’s been quite wet recently. Maybe I need to turn the sprinklers off! I’ve been getting more into gardening.
‘Jack Willis is my next-door neighbour and he can see over the fence, so I’ve got to make sure my grass is always looking good! If he p***** me off I can launch my bin over and into his garden!
‘I’ve never been neighbours with one of the boys before, but we’re team-mates and good friends. I look over the fence and he asks if I want a coffee.
‘I tend to go over to his… he’s better on the latte art than I am!’
Kinghorn has got used to having high standards, not only in his early days as a budding horticulturalist but also with the day job. Toulouse are the biggest and most successful club not only in Europe, but arguably the world.
Kinghorn is a regular starter in Ugo Mola’s all-star team. Toulouse are rugby’s equivalent of football’s Galacticos of Real Madrid. Head coach Mola has internationals throughout his squad, with iconic French scrum-half Antoine Dupont the headline act.
A regular starter for Ugo Mola’s all-star side, Kinghorn is surrounded by Galacticos
‘It’s quite rare in rugby for there to be transfer fees now,’ Kinghorn says, looking back on the substantial fee Toulouse paid Edinburgh to release him from his Scottish contract.
‘In the middle of November, I saw some rumours on X that Toulon were interested in signing me. It was the first I’d heard of it! I text my agent to be like, “What’s this then?” He replied saying it wasn’t true. He said it was Toulouse and not Toulon who were quite keen!
‘In the next couple of days it progressed so, so quickly and Toulouse said they wanted me to join them immediately. I was still playing for Edinburgh at the time and it was definitely in the back of my mind not to get injured! Then, all of a sudden, I was off and had to say bye to the lads I’d grown up with for my whole professional career. That was it and I left home.
‘There wasn’t too much thinking to do. If I’d had stayed at home and in my comfort zone, I’d have kicked myself. Dina was very keen on the move! It’s great for me to have her support here.
‘I said to her “What do you think?” and she said, “We’re going!” She works as a nutritionist online so that was another thing that made it easy. She didn’t have a job to leave.
‘The Scottish Rugby Union were really good with letting me go. They knew how awesome a club Toulouse is and what a great opportunity it was for me.
‘It was something I couldn’t really have turned down. So far, it couldn’t really have gone much better. I was chucked straight in at the deep end. I arrived on the Tuesday and we played on the Saturday. I spoke to the coaches and they thought it might be a bit early for me. I thought it was definitely too early! I didn’t know anything!
He has reflected on his move of a lifetime to Toulouse and leaving Edinburgh behind
‘The team got announced and I was starting! In the first week I was put up in the team hotel and it was just me and Dina and our suitcases!’
From his debut against Cardiff, Kinghorn’s first season in France only got better. It ended with not only a thrilling Champions Cup final win over Leinster at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium after extra time, but then a TOP14 title success too. It was the third time in Toulouse’s history they had recorded a glorious double.
Kinghorn and Co celebrated hard, crowd surfing across a packed Place du Capitole in the heart of Toulouse carrying the Bouclier de Brennus – the giant trophy given to the French league winners.
‘I’d never won anything in my life before coming here,’ says Kinghorn. ‘For me to even be playing in knock-out European games was special.
‘I grew up watching the Heineken Cup, as it was back in the day. We drank for four days solid. It was amazing. The city goes absolutely mental when we win. It’s a proper rugby city. After the Champions Cup final, we got back from London at about two in the morning and there were people at the airport banging drums and holding up flares.
‘You ride that wave of emotion. We had a couple of good days of partying that’s for sure and it’s a memory I’ll always remember.’
Kinghorn and his team-mates celebrated their Champions Cup success in style
Kinghorn scored a try as Toulouse obliterated Bordeaux 59-3 in the final of the TOP14. He started both that game and the Champions Cup final too.
‘If we don’t win the TOP14 and Champions Cup again, then it’s not as good as last year. That’s crazy. The standards we set ourselves here are very high,’ Kinghorn says. ‘That drives us week in, week out. The coaches never get complacent or relax. Every day is intense. It’s a winning culture here.’
You might be unsurprised to hear that Toulouse have won all three of their opening matches to this season’s TOP14, beating newcomers Vannes, La Rochelle and Montpellier. Mola’s side are firm favourites for another double and, frankly, it will take some team to stop them.
Kinghorn is hopeful of another huge season with club and country. At 27, he is in the prime of his career. Kinghorn missed Scotland’s summer tour matches on the back of an arduous season but fitness permitting, will be a key figure for national head coach Gregor Townsend in the November Tests and the 2025 Six Nations.
After the international retirement of Stuart Hogg, Kinghorn is now Scotland’s first-choice full-back but he can also play both wing and fly-half. Such versatility will surely put him in a good position to tour Australia with the British & Irish Lions next summer.
‘For our chances of winning stuff, the Six Nations is obviously the big one,’ Kinghorn said of his Scotland hopes for the next 12 months. ‘In the last three or four years, we’ve started really well.
He is now targeting glory with Scotland and wants to win the Six Nations this season
‘Then we’ll lose a couple of games and all of a sudden, we’re finishing fourth again. It’s a bit annoying. The squad we have is only going to be around for the next couple of years. It’s been together for quite a while now. We’ve seen glimpses of how we can perform, but not consistently. In the last Six Nations we went to Italy and lost.
‘There have been big moments when we’ve needed to perform and haven’t. This season, we want to go and win the Six Nations. It’s a case of enough chat, time to do it.
‘I remember when I was playing at Under-16 level and still at school. We were asked to write down our performance goals and the Lions was something I put on mine.
‘It’s definitely something that is in the back of my mind as something I want to achieve.
‘At the time of the last Lions tour, I wasn’t even starting internationally. Hopefully, now is the chance for me to push forward and get that chance.
‘There is still so much rugby to be played and the Lions is so far away, but it would be an amazing goal for me if it could be achieved. I would love to do that.
Kinghorn believes the golden generation must finally back up their chat with a trophy
‘There are a lot of other versatile players out there but being able to play two or three positions is a good skill to have.’
Kinghorn has his Scotland cap number 1091 tattooed on his wrist in Roman numerals. Another inking shows a hand with its middle finger raised. It was done the morning after a night out on the spur of the moment, but perhaps tells of Kinghorn’s desire to prove his doubters wrong. Not many are doubting him now.
He is playing fine rugby at a club with the strongest strength in depth anywhere in the world. Kinghorn is one of four international full-backs on the Toulouse books alongside Thomas Ramos of France, Argentina’s Juan Cruz Mallia and Italy’s Ange Capuozzo. Unsurprisingly, he is keen to stress his eagerness to stay at Toulouse long term even though he still has two years remaining on his current deal.
When he has sent pictures of his new life in Toulouse to Scottish team-mates, the envy has been real.
‘The main thing for me in coming here was developing as a person and player and seeing a new side to things. I’d been in Edinburgh my whole life,’ Kinghorn says.
‘I was born and raised there and played there for nine years. That can lead to you perhaps getting a bit comfortable in your bubble. It’s the same faces, the same restaurants, the same area. It can maybe make you not push yourself as hard.
Now learning a new language, Kinghorn is relishing working hard and growing every day
‘Coming to a new environment where I had no reputation and I had to earn the respect of the players and coaches was a good challenge for me. It made me work hard every day.
‘The squad here is so good that if you have a bad week, you’re going to get rotated out. It keeps you on your toes that’s for sure. I’ve met new people and tried to learn a new language. It’s the first time I’ve learned something that’s not rugby stuff since school.
‘It’s been good to push myself on that.’
