John BARCLAY who is on the draft list for this season reflects briefly on a previous time
The Hawks back row at the time included the likes if Mark Sitch Neil McKenzie and Greg Francis !
John's brother David another product of Dollar Academy was playing with Hawks at the time

The Scotsman reports

The openside flanker, who turns 25 on Saturday, is anxious about the selection for Scotland's match with Argentina the following day. He knows he was below par in the scary opening match with Romania and that his rival for the No 7 jersey, Ross Rennie, shone against Georgia.

But Barclay has been here before, in Wellington, anxious and wondering what the future holds. In fact, had he not spent a summer playing rugby for Marist St Pats in the city six years ago, sent by the SRU on the first John Macphail Scholarship, he might not have played international rugby at all.

"I was 18 when I came out here, and I was a bit apprehensive about it," he recalls. "I was going halfway round the world, didn't know anyone and so was a bit nervous.

"It was hard because you don't want to seem ungrateful and it was an amazing experience, but the Macphail youngsters go out in twos now - three this year - and that helps I think. I'm quite a quiet person and I just got my head down and got on with it, but I did find it lonely.

"I had been thinking about quitting rugby altogether before that. I hadn't been enjoying the game. I had had an injury and was just fed up with it. I started thinking this isn't quite what I expected. I was so down in my first year as a pro, the injury, leaving school rugby where you played with all your mates, leaving home, playing seconds after being in the Scotland squad, and thinking this isn't fun. And my mates are calling to say they're out partying, doing freshers' week, and I was asking myself if I had done the right thing.

"I hadn't expressed that at the time and everyone just presumed I was loving it. But it's not easy as a first-year pro, especially straight out of school, and when I went to New Zealand I wasn't sure where things were going."

The John Macphail Scholarship, launched in memory of the former Scotland hooker to help develop talented young Scots, has evolved in the six years since, largely through such feedback, and the youngsters now have travelling companions and mentors, and meet up regularly. But, despite enduring some lonely times, Barclay cannot overstate its value now.

The Dollar Academy pupil had emerged as a stand-out in schools rugby in Scotland, but also nursed a long-term hip injury. Matt Williams wanted to make a mark in his first year as Scotland coach and so stunned everyone, including Barclay, when he selected the 18-year-old in his first autumn senior squad, just months after the youngster had left school. It was meant to provide inspiration to Barclay and other young talents, but the higher they climb, the harder they fall: Williams omitted Barclay when it came to the serious business and the player found himself farmed out to Glasgow Hawks - who played him in their reserve side.
The hip problem curtailed his game-time so he was chosen by the SRU to take up the innovative scholarship and head to Wellington for the summer of 2005, where the former Scotland under-21 coach Jono Phillips would be his mentor. And in the Land of the Long White Cloud, the gloom began to lift. "Coming out here to do the Macphail Scholarship made me appreciate rugby again," Barclay explains. "I saw how much the game meant to people out here and it made me realise how lucky I was to be in my situation.

"There were guys out here who would give everything to play professional rugby but couldn't even get in their 1st XV because there were so many quality players. I played mostly in the 2nds, but the whole experience made me realise that, although it maybe seemed a bit dark at that moment and I wasn't enjoying it, what a great opportunity I had when I got home."

Barclay returned a bit wiser and with skills sharper. We had met up in Wellington that summer, while I was reporting on a British and Irish Lions tour going down the pan, and I remember the intelligent, laid-back teenager saying the first thing he had learned was to develop quick feet because you were liable to be seriously injured by an islander if you didn't. "Yeah, I remember that," he says, laughing. "It was only two or three months but I learned a lot about the game and the intensity of rugby, the physicality and attitude of players out here. There are not many moaners out here; they just love rugby.

"People would ask me what skills I learned, and actually it wasn't so much technical things, but the mindset of a rugby player that I picked up on most. At home we can focus on the negatives a lot, and if there is someone who's quite a colourful character we'll tend to say 'he's too flamboyant' and pull him down a peg or two, whereas here that is encouraged. They try to harness guys with something different and harness it to make them better players."

Comparing rugby in Scotland and New Zealand is inevitable, and we talk about a culture here that creates stiffer tests at each level from primary school upwards, where in Scotland players can rise through the ranks without the same pressure to improve every skill, strength and game awareness. We don't have the numbers so we get thrown in at the next level quicker and learn as you go," said Barclay. "I certainly learned international rugby as I went along. In my first few caps I was very up and down, but I was still learning the game in many ways. But I'm not complaining. I've loved it.

This article was originally posted on 21-Sep-2011, 07:06 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 21-Sep-2011, 07:14.