The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Barclay still optimistic despite loss
Twickenham defeat was ‘bump in the road’ as Cotter’s men regroup
Nobody saw the Twickenham rout coming at the weekend, believes John Barclay, and Scotland remain on the right path to their best ever finish in the RBS 6 Nations.
The captain spoke as teammate Fraser Brown was cleared of any further sanction to his yellow card in the first minute at Twickenham and therefore the hooker is clear to play in the championship finale against Italy at BT Murrayfield on Saturday.
It’s one less selection headache for the Scots with three players undergoing concussion protocols and three more waiting on the verdicts of scans on injuries, underlining that the physical toll of Twickenham was almost as bad as the mental one.
However, Barclay believes that the game was “a bump in the road – albeit a really big bump” that can be negotiated while continuing Scotland’s developmental progress.
“We’ve reviewed it and gone over it,” he said. “You can’t really gloss over what went wrong.
“I still believe we’ve been on the right path. I don’t think anyone saw that coming at the weekend. We can still finish with three wins, still finish second in the table – which we’ve never done in the Six Nations.”
The squad are not ignoring the wider lessons of Saturday’s rout, however, he stressed.
“Everyone is honest about it. You have to be a man, take your medicine and move on,” he said.
“I am confident that there will be a reaction this weekend. We need to right a few wrongs.
“We’ve had a lot of great support from the fans and, if we win three out of five, we can finish quite well in the Championship. Doing that is the only way to move away from the England game.
“It makes you sick to watch it back. But there will be a positive reaction.”
It would be self-defeating to completely change course on one result, however chastening a result that was, he argued.
“We’ve put more emphasis on getting a bit of clarity with the guys and making sure we’re ready to go at the weekend. We can’t – and we don’t need to – reinvent the wheel in the space of a week.
“You have to draw a line under it, learn from it certainly but be ready to move on, go out there and be ready for one more big game to end the Championship. Some people mope about, others find it easier to bounce back. Certainly we trained well today and didn’t see any drawing back – it was all about looking forward. We can’t afford to look back now.”
The fact that it’s Vern Cotter’s last game as head coach hasn’t even been mentioned, and that’s a mark of the man, says Barclay.
“That has never been mentioned, not once. I don’t think we will even discuss it,” he said.
“That’s probably the measure of the man. He’s not interested in the accolades, not interested in people playing for his benefit or the other coaches who are moving on.
“There is more than enough to play for without trying to win for someone else. Nobody needs that.”
Scotland have to be wary of the Italians despite their desperate championship so far, he conceded.
“They do some different things, apart from the no ruck tactic they’ve used that open-play maul to good effect, but there are triggers for it you can see on video.
“Sergio Parisse is their talisman so it’s important we do stop him. A lot of their moves go through him or around him. But, if we play with accuracy and are a bit better tactically, we will be OK.”
A three-man panel convened by the Six Nations agreed with Fraser Brown’s admission that he had dangerously tackled England’s Elliot Daly in contravention of Law 10.4(e) but that the act of foul play did not merit a red card.
The panel determined that not all of the necessary elements for foul play under the law had been present. Brown is therefore able to resume playing immediately.