The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Fortune favours the brave at Murrayfield
wrong if you need to take inspiration from the opposition.
“If we sit back and are in awe of them, then there’s something quite drastically wrong with our mindset.
“We need to focus on ourselves as much as we can and try to impose ourselves.”
He added: “There are a lot of questions about the All Blacks but, for me, it’s about the honour of playing and captaining my country, and what that means to me.
“We have to do a bit of homework but if we sit back and talk about them and how fantastic they are, we have no chance.”
History will certainly be against Scotland on Saturday evening as they attempt to break their long-standing duck against the southern hemisphere side.
The Dark Blues are yet to register a win against the All Blacks in more than 100 years of fixtures, drawing just twice and losing the other 28 times.
However, Barclay brushed off talk of it playing on the minds of players, claiming history will have no relevance when the two sides take to the pitch.
“It would be no use talking about that,” the Scarlets back row said. “It’s one of those stats, isn’t it? We’ve certainly not mentioned it. It doesn’t bother me. It is what it is. It’s a statistic and it will still be a stat one minute before kick-off at the weekend.
“We still have 80 minutes of rugby to play. It’s a huge challenge but a very excit- ing one for us to try and change.”
However, there is some cause for optimism among supporters, with the captain saying: “We have had some good victories in the last 12 to 18 months and this weekend will be very hard; they don’t lose many games but they have lost a few in the past 12 months.
“For us, we have to play well, we can’t just sit back and watch them, we have to go and play with an intent, be aggressive and try to impose ourselves on them.”