Barclay is full of praise for Smith and his Warriors
John Barclay believes Glasgow Warriors are growing under Franco Smith and sees similarities with the early days of Gregor Townsend’s time at the club.
Smith, who succeeded Danny Wilson as head coach in the summer, goes into tomorrow’s 1872 Cup home derby against Edinburgh on the back of three successive victories. It has been achieved with some radical team choices as he tries to enhance the squad’s depth.
He made ten changes for the Perpignan game last Friday and 11 the week before to play Bath, breaking up the side that had defeated Zebre for their first away win in the league since January.
It caused many - Barclay included - to question the coach but Glasgow answered the critics with a gritty win at the Rec and followed it up with a bonuspoint victory over Perpignan at Murrayfield.
Suddenly, the team that couldn’t win on the road have taken three scalps away from Scotstoun. It’s a far cry from the difficult early days of Smith’s reign when both of Glasgow’s pre-season friendlies were cancelled and they lost to Benetton in their URC opener.
“I’ve been really impressed, especially in the last couple of weeks,” said Barclay, who will be working as an analyst for Viaplay tomorrow evening alongside Emma Dodds, Chris Paterson, Jim Hamilton, Rory Hamilton and Jamie Lyall.
“I was one who raised eyebrows after the win in
Zebre. I thought, here’s an opportunity to pick your best team to go down to Bath and I had to eat humble pie! I said to Franco after the game that he was totally vindicated in his selection.”
Barclay, who played under Townsend at Glasgow, said Smith’s attempts to give game-time to more players reminds him of the work the now Scotland coach did with Warriors when he first arrived.
“Franco’s trying to build a squad, and he knows money doesn’t grow on trees so he’s trying to give young guys opportunities,” said Barclay. “He had the worst possible start to the season and you thought this could be a long slog but you can see a definite improvement week to week in how they are trying to attack, the shapes they are trying to play and they look far more organised.
“They look fit and they look like they’ve got an edge in how they’re trying to play. And that was probably the criticism levelled at them last year - they had lost their way, lost their edge.
“Now, the biggest compliment I could give them is that you know how they’re trying to play the game. They look very organised and the guys who are coming in look very hungry.
“I’m hearing some guys are a bit disappointed that they are not getting picked for games when they played well the week before and that’s kind of like what Toony did when he first took over at Glasgow. He was changing the squad from week to week, giving guys opportunities, building competition and building depth in the squad, and I’ve actually been really impressed by Glasgow.”