TIME TO ROAR
Scots must start with Cardiff win to make us serious contenders for the title, insists Barclay
SCOTLAND captain John Barclay has laid down the gauntlet to his side ahead of the Six Nations kick-off today — declaring they must win in Cardiff if they are to be considered serious title contenders. Ahead of Gregor Townsend’s first Championship as head coach, the Scots’ chances have been talked up following their impressive displays during the autumn Test series. Now, however, the challenge is to build on that, with their first hurdle Warren Gatland’s Wales and a venue where they haven’t won since
2002. ‘I’ve been thinking about this game for weeks now,’ said Barclay yesterday before the Scots travelled down to Cardiff.
‘It has been at the back of my head simmering away. I have been trying not to get too excited but it has been hard. I now just want to get on with the game and take it to Wales.
‘If we want to challenge and win a Six Nations, this is the type of game we have to win.
‘I like to think we showed in the autumn that when we get going and play at a high tempo, then even the best team in the world, New Zealand, can struggle against us. We need to show that again now.
‘Winning away is hard but if we’re serious about pushing up the table, then that’s what we have to do.
‘Wales have won five of their last six home games in the Six Nations. They have an amazing stadium and a fantastic support — but we feel we can go down there and win.’
Barclay felt it was a false representation of Scotland’s performances in the last Six Nations that, despite winning three matches, they ended up finishing fourth in the table.
Now, he wants to see an improvement.
‘We won three games last year and finished fourth, which was annoying,’ said the back-row forward. ‘We sat and watched the other games and Wales lost — in what seemed like the 150th minute — to France, which cost us a position or two.
‘But we’re optimistic about what we can do, although we understand how hard this competition is.
‘We’re just looking at Wales, we’ve not really spoken about the next game. We’ve spoken about beating them because we know that would put us in a good position going forward to challenge in the rest of the tournament.’
Barclay also defended Townsend’s decision not to have a captain’s run at the Principality Stadium yesterday.
Under previous head coaches Frank Hadden, Andy Robinson and Vern Cotter, the Scots always travelled to the away ground for a light workout on the eve of the game.
This time, though, they stayed north of the border, trained at Murrayfield, then flew down to the Welsh capital and went straight to the team hotel.
‘Perhaps it’s easy for me to say because I’ve played there, but most of the guys have played in big stadiums across the world,’ said Barclay.
‘Once we get going, most of the guys are going to be motivated by the fact that it’s a big occasion.
‘I don’t think not being there in Cardiff on the Friday will affect us. We’ll get out there a bit before the game on Saturday and soak up the atmosphere.
‘The Principality Stadium is one of those places you want to play at. I’ve been lucky enough to play there a couple of times.’
The Welsh are pulling out all the stops to up the temperature ahead of kick-off.
One of their ploys is to play the whole of Wales’ epic win over Scotland in 2010, when they came back from a ten-point deficit with just five minutes left to win 31-24 through a last-minute try from Shane Williams.
That game was marred by a neck injury to Thom Evans that ended his career and Chris Paterson being sidelined for four months after rupturing his kidney on his 100th appearance.
It is unclear when that match will be shown on the giant screens or whether the players will be in the stadium at the time.
‘I don’t know why they are doing that but we will just crack on and it won’t affect the players,’ added Barclay. ‘If they show it again it won’t bother us. We’ll just be concentrating on this game.’