Skipper Barclay admits to being relieved
Scotland skipper John Barclay was a relieved man in Rome last night.
His side was behind for most of the match in the Stadio Olimpico but managed to edge themselves in front in the final minutes when it mattered most, a 78th- minute Greig Laidlaw penalty being the decisive score.
The Dark Blues recorded a bonus-point win despite being way below par, and Barclay said: “We came here to win and we came away with the win.
“We found a way to win. We stayed calm, it wasn’t perfect by any manner of means but we found a way to win the game.
“That has been the story of our Six Nations. When we are accurate we are very good, we played some good stuff. When we played accurately and held on to the ball, we put them under a lot of pressure.
“That was tough. We have one of the best goalkickers in the world and he stepped up to win the game.
“The guys are just happy, exhausted, relieved, happy that we came here and left with three wins out of five but Italy will be very disappointed.”
Coach Gregor Townsend said: “We’ve got a long way to go to reach our potential. It’s been a good experience for the players and to get three wins in such a competitive championship, we do realise our history, we’ve not won three times that often.
“That’s OK but we want to do better than that, we want to build on what we’ve done this year.”