SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY REPORTS
Young bucks bank on Barclay
IAIN MORRISON

SCOTLAND'S junior squad flew out of Edinburgh airport yesterday en route to France and what will probably be the last ever Under-21 World Championships. The young Scots kick off against Australia next Friday before facing Italy and England in the group stages. They then have another two knockout rounds to determine their final standings in this final competition.

If that sounds like hard work then spare a thought for Glasgow breakaway John Barclay who is at the tail end of his third successive rugby season...without a break. The young flanker won a scholarship to New Zealand so instead of topping up his sun burn on the beach Barclay spent last summer playing club rugby in Wellington where he came upon a chance discovery; his love of rugby.

Before he travelled to the other side of the globe the Glasgow flanker had come close to quitting the game altogether after a series of incidents that undermined not only his faith in rugby but his ability to play it, too. Six months out of action with a groin injury didn't help matters and on his return to action he found himself in the uncomfortable situation of appearing in Matt Williams' Scotland squad before he had played first team club rugby. Like King Louis in the Jungle Book he'd reached the top and had to stop, the only way was down; with admirable restraint Barclay recalls his subsequent selection for Hawks 2nd XV as "a bit of a comedown after the Scotland squad."

"I shouldn't have been there (in the Scotland squad) to be honest, I had just come back after an injury," he says now, the benefit of distance from the event giving Barclay a clearer perspective upon Williams' bizarre decision. "I didn't know anything about it but I just got a message about a press release. It seemed to be a big thing in the papers the next day. I probably could have done with being left alone. Schoolboy rugby is pretty basic and to come to a Scotland training session" ... he is momentarily lost for words ... "I just had no idea."

It placed the teenager under an unwelcome spotlight precisely when he was making the tricky transition from schoolboy to adult rugby, something he was finding difficult enough without all the attention. "When I came back (after injury) I just really wasn't enjoying rugby simply because I couldn't play like I did before the injury. I was playing terribly, I didn't deserve to be in the Hawks team and I still don't know why. I kept thinking that I was playing badly and the whole thing just spiralled, it just kept going and kept going and I really didn't like rugby. When I came back from New Zealand I seem to have got my hunger back."

"I probably should have had a rest then but just being out in New Zealand I just did my own thing; some friends were out there and I had a really good time. That was probably invaluable because when I went out there I was really bored of rugby."

"In the last two games of last season's (Under-19) World Championships I was starting to play well and starting to remember why I played rugby but it wasn't until pre-season of this season that I was really playing good rugby again."

Even now Barclay struggles to explain why the perfect antidote to too much rugby was more of the stuff. The different surroundings doubtless helped as did the fact that expectations were low, nobody knew him or anything about him and he was able to dilute his rugby experience down under with surfing and travel. Even before Williams catapulted him unwillingly into the headlines, or should that be headlights, Barclay had already made a splash after selection for the Scotland sevens side. It wasn't the best Scotland sevens team, nor was Budapest the most prestigious tournament in the world, but for a 16-year-old Dollar Academy schoolboy it proved a huge eye opener.

In the final of the tournament Barclay came off the bench against France and lasted exactly 20 seconds before being sent to the sin bin for a high tackle. The assault sparked an almighty dust up and the fifth grade schoolboy can be forgiven for wondering if he had just set some sort of record for the shortest international career on record. Thankfully, Scotland went on to win. Older and wiser, Barclay has just signed a two-year deal with Glasgow in which time he hopes to establish himself as a first choice first team player.

In fellow Under-21 breakaway Johnny Beattie he has an ally in arms and the Glasgow duo would no doubt have featured together if Beattie had not been called up to travel with Frank Hadden's senior squad in South Africa, as back-up for the injured Allister Hogg. Barclay will be joined in France by Alan MacDonald and Ross Rennie of Edinburgh to make up a useful looking backrow trio. Team Manager John Jeffrey knows a little something about backrow play and the former Scotland great confirmed that he and coach Iain Paxton have some difficult decisions to make in the next few months.

"Normally with the Under-21 side it's a matter of thinking who we can find to fill a space but this year it will be a matter of deciding who to leave out of the team which is a nice problem to have."

Jeffrey is supportive of his young charge but the older man gets straight to the nub of Barclay's problem, what his best position is? The youngster admits a preference for the No.7, hardly surprising after a year in New Zealand where, he remembers, "everyone wants to play at seven, it's the sexy position there", but Jeffrey has his own opinion. "Barclay has huge potential and we see him as a six because we have MacDonald and Rennie vying for the No.7 jersey and Beattie is a No.8. Barclay has good distribution and he reads the game well so I suspect his future will be at six or eight."

Jeffrey went on to talk up his team's chances despite the fact that they had mixed fortunes in the Six Nations, winning just the last two matches against Ireland and Italy, the only two matches in which the MacDonald/Beattie/Barclay trio played together.

"We have about two thirds of last year's squad back," says the team manager before pointing out that that side finished up within one converted try of Australia, their first opponents in France.

"We know that we are up against it in the opening match because we all saw what the Australians did to us at Under-19 level in Dubai. We expect them to have about eight players with Super 14 experience but we have a chance of beating them if we are on our game. However if we play like we did against England in the Six Nations where we fell off tackles and kicked possession away, then we will get thumped."

The Scotland squad have 16 players attached to pro-teams but few have as much experience of actually playing the game as Barclay. Quizzed as to the tactics of playing five matches in 17 days, the first three in just eight, Jeffrey admits to learning from past mistakes.

"Last year we found out, too late, that we have to use the squad. Instead we thought that every match was a must-win match so we had to play our best side every time.

By the time we got to the final round against Argentina the boys were knackered, dead on their feet. We have to use the players sensibly but that will still probably depend upon results in the first couple of games."

In his 20th consecutive month of rugby Barclay knows more about exhaustion than most and is looking forward to his summer break, all three weeks of it, some of which will be spent surfing with friend and back row colleague Rennie in Biarritz after the upcoming tournament. Like his manager Barclay has learned from experience and the youngster insists that he has a better balance in his life now.

He will start studying a course in biomedical sciences and is already looking forward to a better season at Glasgow next year. On the thorny question as to which side of the Glasgow scrum he would like to make his own Barclay knows he will have a tough task dislodging either Andrew Wilson or Donnie Macfadyen. "At my age I don't really care what position I play, I just want to play the game." And that is not something that the young Scottish flanker would have claimed a year ago.

FIXTURES: June 9: AUSTRALIA (8pm); June 13: ITALY (6.30pm); June 17: ENGLAND 6pm; June 21: Semi-final play-offs; June 15: Final play-offs.

This article was posted on 4-Jun-2006, 07:01 by Hugh Barrow.