Maybe John Barclay is not an Etonian but he has a good pedigree never the less
Father Graham was an outstanding all round athlete with Victoria Park A.A.C.in the 1970s,at a time when the Scotstoun club was a real power in the land of Scottish athletics
Graham won the Scottish Youth High Jump Championship following this up with the A.A.A (British) title in 1970.The following year he was runner up in the A.A.A Junior High Jump Championship



THE HERALD REPORTS
Barclay banks on big improvement
KEVIN FERRIE, Chief Rugby Writer January 02 2009
Any doubt over John Barclay's growing status as one of Britain's leading players was surely removed by a bogus claim made on him last month.

In a spread featuring old Etonians who are set to influence the world in the 21st century, that organ of English establishment, theDaily Telegraph, pictured the Glasgow Warriors flanker in Scotland garb, proclaiming he, along with the likes of David Cameron and BorisJohnson, was among those key figures.

It was a clear case of mistaken identify . . . "My dade-mailed to tell them; I don't know if he's had a reply," said Barclay. "It might be handy to put on the cv for future employers, though."

The laugh was forced, as befits one who has been struggling to re-discover his sense of humour this past week. So, when it was suggested that he should not need to look for a new job forsome considerable time, he added tersely: "I don't know . . . I thought about itlast Friday."

It reflects just how hard heand most of his team-mates found it to come to terms with not just their 39-6 defeat by Edinburgh atMurrayfield last week, butthe manner of it.

"I would say that was the worst game I've been involved in with Glasgow in the five years I've been here; in fact it was definitely, quite comfortably, the worst rugby experience I've had," he said. "I've never been involved in a game where, as a team, we have played so badly.

"There's only so much you can say and it was all said when we were under the sticks at the end of the game. The most frustrating thing was that you couldn't do anything to reverse it and the whole thing just snowballed. We had so much time with the ball, but we were so ineffective and the missed one-on-one tackles were completely unacceptable.

"Even against Bath in the Heineken Cup when we also conceded scores, they were working to score their tries. It couldn't have gone any worse against Edinburgh. It was an embarrassment to fail to deliver so spectacularly."

With such a brutally candid assessment of his own side's failings, Barclay will never be a politician, but he has made it clear the Warriors, who a month ago thought they were poised to challenge for the Magners League title, feel as if they have hit rock bottom so the only way is up.

They can draw some inspiration from today's opponents, since Edinburgh were beaten 39-0 at Leicester in the Heineken Cup last season, yet beat the then English champions in the return leg at Murrayfield.

Those matches were separated by a few months, though, whereas Warriors have only had a week to re-group. Their home record at Firhill is a formidable one, and Edinburgh's players and management have naturally spoken about guarding against a backlash when they head along the M8. Today's visitors are, though, absolutely sure they have the season's first piece of silverware, the David Lloyd 1872 Cup, in the bag, and rightly so.

As they look for a double that would lift them into serious title contention, Edinburgh may have suffered a setback with the withdrawal through injury of Ross Rennie - he is seen as Barclay's biggest rival for the Scotland No.7 shirt - but his replacement is a class act in Alan MacDonald. That change apart, their side has, if anything been strengthened.

Warriors were, meanwhile, bound to ring the changes, especially up front, after such an ineffective showing at the national stadium.

When making his assessment of the performance, Sean Lineen, their coach, also struggled to find much in the way of anything positive to say. He did, though, exonerate Barclay and fellow flanker Kelly Brown to some extent by noting that they had spent most of the game doing chores that should have been performed by the front five.

As the only Warrior to have started all three Scotland Tests in the autumn, Barclay does have additional responsibility to lift things this week. He will know as he does so that he is unlikely to be accompanied by many clubmates in the RBS6Nations squad if there is a repeat of what happened at Murrayfield.

If the rest perform as they can and have done previously this season, Barclay is the man who can then make the difference.

Being a man of influence is one thing, though, it is a collective effort that is required if he is to have the chance to change the shape of things at national level.

This article was originally posted on 2-Jan-2009, 09:27 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 2-Jan-2009, 09:28.