It was a break from the game, but it was not in any way restful as Scotland captain John Barclay fretted over both his long-term health and his international prospects.

Naturally he was anxious to get back onto the pitch and, according to his sport’s protocols, he could have. However the former Glasgow Warriors and Scotland team-mate of Rory Lamont, who was a trail-blazer in campaigning vigorously for increased focus on the long-term consequences of head injuries in contact sports, knew better than to return before he felt ready to do so.

“I was never going to come back and play…” he said of his mindset while he was still suffering from symptoms. “I passed the cognitive function test. Technically I could have said I felt fine. That to me is where the system is so flawed. If I had said I felt fine I could have played because I had passed all the online tests and the memory tests and stuff but I still did not feel right so that is obviously where there is room for improvement in the assessment of players.”

The difficulty was that Barclay was still suffering from light-headedness and irritability and it is a measure of the improvements in awareness of an issue that will see ex-footballer Alan Shearer follow in the footsteps of BBC Scotland’s former rugby international John Beattie by undergoing tests as part of a documentary examining concussion in sport to be aired next weekend, that he was not prepared to take any chances.

“Everybody knows not to. It is just whether you choose not to, where you are in your career,” he observed. “I think I am reasonably smart enough not to do that. I have played at bit of rugby. I have two kids and my wife is pregnant. I am not going to risk long term ill health or do something stupid just so I was fit to play in a rugby match, whether it was playing for Scarlets or Scotland. I was not going to risk that. That is just my approach but I know some of the other guys may not have done the same.”

He admitted that the length of time he continued to suffer from symptoms had been alarming.

“The power of your brain is quite frightening,” said Barclay. “If you sit and think about things long enough and symptoms it can scare you. You can go away and read about it now and guys who are having time out with it at the moment.”

A visit to a specialist proved revealing, in more ways than one, the good news being that the tests indicated that he had not suffered any identifiable damage.

“I went for brain scans and stuff which sounds quite extreme and scary and they found that everything’s OK which obviously puts your mind at rest to some degree and they just run a whole host more tests,” Barclay explained. “Like, the stuff we do is great as a preliminary, but what he’s doing is way more detailed and takes hours to do.”

However it was also a discussion that offered insight into the challenges facing the medics since little light was shed on why he was continuing to suffer from symptoms.

“He admits the stuff he’s doing isn’t perfect,” Barclay said of the specialist. “He’s trying to find stuff that’s going to give them a better idea of how to treat these things. So he just said your cognitive function’s good, your brain is actually ok, so you just need to start trying to get back into things. That’s the thing. He’s a professor and he still doesn’t really know.”

In physical terms the break could yet prove beneficial to a player who is moving towards the veteran stage of his career but Barclay admits it has been difficult to be philosophical.

“My body will be good for it, but the symptoms I had and the way concussions are it was hard to relax. I was irritable, had migraines. It was not even a case of I can sit back, do weights, do other stuff. It was very much a case of doing very little for a large part of the six weeks,” he noted.

What has helped his mindset, however, has been the return to the Scotland fold of Kelly Brown his former international captain and fellow ‘Killer B’ in the Glasgow Warriors back-row, who has re-joined the squad as a skills coach.

“It’s great… we’re just waiting for Johnnie Beattie to show up,” he laughed, referring to the third ‘Killer B’. “No it’s good, obviously Kelly’s one of my good friends. There are a handful of guys I keep in contact with regularly and he’s one of those guys I would still phone to catch up and see how everyone is. It’s great to catch up with him and see him more regularly.”

Barclay meanwhile refused to dismiss speculation that he is poised to return to Scottish rugby by joining old rivals Edinburgh.

“There is a chance of anything,” he teased. “I am playing at Scarlets at the moment, have managed to get back into the Scotland fold and am captain of Scotland at the moment. There is a bit of speculation at the moment but I don’t know what else to tell you to be honest.”