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Barclay says Wales win just the start

SCOTLAND captain John Barclay toasted his first victory over Wales in the RBS Six Nations and insisted that the team will be better when they face England in what will now be a key match in deciding this season’s title.

After years of striving to avoid the wooden spoon, Barclay took over from the injured Greig Laidlaw to lead the Scots to a second tournament win in three games, with England and Italy to come. But the Scarlets flanker insisted that the key to the turnaround has been Scotland’s ability to uncover finishing talent.

The captain stated: ‘I wouldn’t want to predict positions (at the end of the tournament), but I would say we’ve had two good wins and are sitting in a pretty good spot, and the group is playing well.

‘But we can play better and that’s a really encouraging thing — we can go to Twickenham now knowing we’ve put ourselves in a good position to kick on.

‘Any win here is very satisfying in the Six Nations, but we came in at half-time and knew we’d made too many mistakes and given away too many penalties.

‘Sometimes at half-time it’s very hard to change a game and it continues to go away from you, but the way we stepped up, listened to the points made (by the coaches) and applied them says a lot about the maturity of the young players who are controlling the team.

‘Every Scottish team I’ve played in has gone out with the ambition to win but

when we go out and keep hold of the ball and get into the opposition 22 our conversion rate with this team is very good — we’re playing against good defences and we’re still scoring points.

‘There are areas to tidy up on but the guys are playing with confidence, we’re keeping the ball and defending well, and so we’re ticking a lot of boxes. There are still areas we’re looking at, areas where we left chances out there.’

Asked about beating the country he has called home in recent years, he added: ‘It feels pretty good at the moment. When you come off a Test match you’re physically and mentally pretty drained, but there is a real buzz in the changing room.

‘We felt we let ourselves down in Paris, and this middle game in the Six Nations is huge to get back on track. We’ve done that and have a week off now, and then we’ll build towards the next game.’

When Scotland last defeated Wales, in 2007, it was from seven Chris Paterson penalties, and a key reason why they have not beaten England at Twickenham has been the failure to overcome the hosts’ ability to finish off tries.

Head coach Vern Cotter admitted that is the key element in Scotland’s armoury that has changed, and while pointing to errors in his side’s performance against Wales as reasons to stay grounded, he admitted that he is enthusiastic about his side’s form.

‘Yes, I think our conversion rate is pretty good,’ he said. ‘We didn’t get everything right today by any means, but there were some good things and they’re good for the confidence and we can develop them, and we know we can still play better.

‘I was really happy for a number of reasons. We set out to win the game and at half-time we weren’t particularly well positioned to do that.

‘So, I am very proud of the response. The boys went out and started taking the game to the Welsh team, scored a couple of nice tries and transferred pressure back on to the Welsh team.’