As the common denominator in Scotland’s hat-trick of recent triumphs over the Wallabies John Barclay might seem better placed than most to explain why there is so little between the sides, but do not go looking to the Scotland captain for an explanation.
“It’s not something you think about. When we’ve played them in the last couple of years they have been tight games for whatever reason. They are very physical games, very fast games,” was all he could offer on the subject.
Not just in the past couple of years, either, more than a decade having elapsed since the last of what had become routine thrashings handed out to the Scots by the Australians over the previous quarter of a century.
Backs to the wall wins at Murrayfield in 2009 then in New South Wales three years later first saw Scotland end that sequence, then claim a first away win over one of the Southern Hemisphere giants in a quarter of a century.
No Scottish tries were recorded in either of those wins, whereas the matches of the past year that have brought an away win apiece have been of a different order and as he seeks to extend his winning record in the fixture, that loss a year ago standing alone as a black mark on his record, Barclay has revelled in them.
“The game in the summer was awesome to play in, a really energetic, fast, physical game,” he enthused. “It was very similar to the game last autumn, almost as if the game in the autumn had just been four halves, we’d gone on and just started again really. I don’t know why, we just seem to create these types of games at the moment.”
He knows that key to registering another victory will almost certainly be nullifying his rival captain Michael Hooper, one of the all-time great breakdown operators.
“He’s one of the best players in the world, so like we do with everybody we look at strengths and weaknesses and he’s obviously a strength of theirs because he’s their captain, he’s a talismanic figure for them and he’s playing well, disruptive at the breakdown and fantastic with ball in hand,” Barclay observed.
In expressing such respect there was a hint of honour among thieves when he was asked whether he had any sympathy for Hooper in the number of times he has been sent to the sin bin of late.
“If you play the way he plays, he plays on the edge. He’s on that line, managing to get away with it, but I don’t think he’ll be losing too much sleep over it,” he mused.
As to the overall challenge, Barclay claimed to be baffled by the way in which the team he and his colleagues had beaten in Sydney in June had been written off in some quarters.
“I think they were a good side in summer. I found it bizarre that people were saying they were on a downslope,” he observed. “They had been in the World Cup final two years before and they play against the best teams in the world every few weeks, so it’s not exactly that they’re playing against pub teams.
“They have some of the best players in the world. I disagree with people saying they were in decline. They have always been one of the best teams and it’s maybe just the nature of the beast with rugby being such a big sport that they will always be under pressure from the media.”
That they have beaten the All Blacks since that encounter bears testimony to that analysis and Barclay is consequently viewing this as another one off opportunity to claim one of the major scalps in world rugby, rather than some sort of autumn Test campaign defining decider.
“As a playing group we don’t see it as a series, it’s viewed as an individual game,” said the captain. “Last week had a lot of positives, but we were disappointed with the final result. Tomorrow we are going out to win the game. We can debrief afterwards. We’re not making any grand assumptions at the moment.”
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