Dear Vern

123456789 wrote:Anyone with twitter prepared to message Barclay asking him if he'd play if asked so that he can answer in the affirmative, and then we'll sit and hope a lazy journalist picks it up and a campaign starts?

George Carlin wrote:JB (playing as no.8) scored yet another try for the Scarlets against Ulster over the weekend.

I can't remember who made the remark again but I completely disagree with the comment that Barclay had to go to an average team to look good. Seems fairly strange given that a number of the Scotland team play for Edinburgh and are deemed acceptable in quality, whereas Scarlets currently sit above them in the league - yet some people seem to feel that we can look down on Scarlets players. He is a very important guy for them and sometimes captains the side.

123456789 wrote:Barclay still has time to fulfill his potential and could very well make it onto the plane in 2017 if he continues to play well and manages to get back into the Scotland team. Each game we have lost by the skin of our teeth and there are players out there who are Scottish and  could have made a difference.
I was reading reports from when Barclay was leaving Glasgow and it seems it was more of a financial decision on Glasgow's part than an attitude one and on top of that he was picked in the summer but pulled out because of injury.
The easiest thing to do would be for Cotter to call him up and say "you're in on the condition you remove the crap from your twitter"  and then do a mutual appreciation type press conference in which Barclay tells everyone despite the results the Scotland set up has drastically improved since he was last involved and how proud he is to come back.

 John Barclay@johnbarc86 · Jan 14
Sad to hear of my old mate Ross Rennie's retirement. Genuinely one of the most talented players I had the pleasure of playing with & against

Iain Morrison: Scotland miss craft of Finn Russell
IAIN MORRISON

IT WASN’T a great result unless, of course, you happen to be Italian. All over Scotland teeth were gnashing, various things were rent in twain and all manner of weeping and wailing took place, not least in the Scottish dressing room.

Scotland have now played their “easier” opposition, with England and Ireland still to come and nothing those two saw on Saturday will keep them awake at night. Scotland were bullied up front, toothless in attack and naive throughout.

Once again indiscipline played a big part in Scotland’s downfall. Not so much the yellow cards at the end – they were arguably a cynical necessity – but the penalty on the halfway mark that allowed Italy to resume their siege of the Scotland line was brainless like so much of Scotland’s play.

The root of their problems stemmed from the set piece. Italy’s original attacking lineout on 72 minutes at the start of that eight-minute siege came from a scrum penalty. The scrum was awarded because Fraser Brown threw squint at a lineout but why a brand-new hooker only recently joined the fray was asked to ping his very first throw to the tail is a question Vern Cotter may well put to Jonny Gray.

You could also argue that the Scots should have contested the Italian lineout that took place 24 metres from the home try-line with about three minutes remaining. The home team knew that trouble was on its way if Italy set up their driving maul, so why not throw some bodies into the air and contest the throw in an attempt to solve the problem at source?

As ever, many of these issues stem from the fact that Scotland’s player pool is more of a player puddle. It’s depth is measured in millilitres rather than fathoms. If everyone is fit and healthy, then the Scots are competitive, as they were against New Zealand in November. When they are missing key personnel, then things start to unravel pretty quickly.

In the absence of Richie Gray, Grant Gilchrist, Adam Ashe, David Denton and Jim Hamilton, the Scottish squad was short of beef, which has implications not only for defending the maul, but also at the set scrum. Moreover, the lack of big, bruising ball carriers meant that the Scots’ attack was all too often too lateral. You have to earn the right to go wide and they didn’t.

In the absence of Sean Maitland, Sean Lamont is finally beginning to show the miles on his clock. That forward pass to Stuart Hogg around the one-hour mark was unnecessary, given that Blair Cowan was running a good support line from deep. A pop to the flanker probably wouldn’t have resulted in an immediate try but nor would it have offered Italy an easy exit.

But the man Scotland missed most of all was stand-off Finn Russell because, without, him an exciting set of backs that has looked creative and sharp to date were almost anonymous. The Scottish quick men managed six clean line breaks against both France and Wales but, on Saturday against an Italian defence that has already conceded eight tries in the opening two matches, the Scots managed just four clean breaks and failed to construct a single try; Mark Bennett’s early interception was an individual poacher’s effort.

While France and Wales both employ a blitz defence, Italy use a hybrid model that rushes up early when the defenders are set in their starting blocks but reverts to an old fashioned drift defence as the attack builds momentum and the defenders are on their heels rather than their toes.

Peter Horne plays deep and likes to play out the back, he even said as much ahead of this game. What he means is that he ignores the decoy runners coming from out-to-in and, instead, passes the ball “out the back” (behind them) to the attackers running in-to-out from deep. The ploy is overdone. It can work but only when those decoy runners get the ball occasionally to halt the opposition drift and they rarely if ever did against Italy, who were able to shuffle out early and smother the Scottish attack in the wide channels.

Something was obviously said at half time because both Scotland’s halfbacks, Horne and Greig Laidlaw, attacked the line a lot better in the second 40 and with some joy, but the almost telepathic understanding that midfielders get from playing regularly with one another simply wasn’t there. No one anticipated Horne’s little darts or, if they did, he was swallowed up by the blue shirts before he could get the offload away.

Fifteen minutes into Scotland’s match against Wales, Russell spotted he is up against Dan Lydiate, he takes the outside line and draws the tackle from the flanker and centre Jamie Roberts, before putting Dunbar through the gap. Cotter will beef up the pack as best he can – Adam Ashe, Jim Hamilton and David Denton will get mentioned in selection – but if Scotland’s quick men are to do any damage at Twickenham then Russell will surely resume his playmaker’s role.

funnyExiledScot wrote:Can't see any big personnel changes, we just those being picked to play to their potential. Ford, Dickinson, Harley and Beattie were all to varying degrees ineffective. Laidlaw was slow, Horne is out of his depth, Seymour was quite and is returning to match fitness and Lamont offers absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Too many passengers, and frustratingly too many good players playing well beneath themselves.

Of that lot, Laidlaw, Horne and Lamont should be dropped for England.

Prothero wrote:Also i have a nagging fear Maitland will be lumped in with Barclay as being person non grata by the SRU now that he accepted the contract at London Irish. There is more than meets the eye going on with his absence. I suspect the SRU expect there senior players to play in Scotland to help put bums on seats etc?  

123456789 wrote:I believe that it is because he believes brown and Barclay to be synonymous with Scotland's failings over the last few years, I think he wanted to make a big statement. He claims it's because he wants to play a fast brand of rugby yet Jim Hamilton and Sean Lamont  are contrary to both of those theories and continues to be selected.

I genuinely believe it to be the Scott Johnson effect, I suspect that both, who were part of a strong Glasgow side and brown who'd been at Saracens pointed out Johnson's failings as senior players and that did not go down well.

EWT Spoons wrote:

funnyExiledScot wrote:Can't see any big personnel changes, we just those being picked to play to their potential. Ford, Dickinson, Harley and Beattie were all to varying degrees ineffective. Laidlaw was slow, Horne is out of his depth, Seymour was quite and is returning to match fitness and Lamont offers absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Too many passengers, and frustratingly too many good players playing well beneath themselves.

Of that lot, Laidlaw, Horne and Lamont should be dropped for England.

I'd probably add that I think Beattie should also be dropped.  I know Denton has only played one game since returning from injury, but he can't do any worse than Beattie has so far.

BBC wrote:Scotland's Al Dickinson aggrieved by scrum refereeing

Referee George Clancy's handling of the scrummage during Scotland's Six Nations loss to Italy was "disappointing", according to prop Al Dickinson.
Irishman Clancy oversaw a string of resets and delays at the set-piece as the winless hosts went down 22-19.
"I think he was making a mountain out of a molehill at times, but when he let us scrum we scrummed really well," said the 31-year-old.

"It was just frustrating he seemed to take an age."
The arbiter frequently broke up the packs to mete out instructions and reposition the front-rows. It rendered the frustrated Gloucester loosehead harnessing all his diplomacy when commenting on the officiating of scrummages at large.

"It seems front-rows don't know anything about scrummaging and refs do - I don't know many prop refs," he said.
"It seems to be a bit of a lottery at times, but what can you do? As players, we're not allowed to talk to the refs about what we can do to solve it or what issues he sees.
"In rugby you can't talk to the refs otherwise you get sent to the bad boys' corner."
Dickinson was part of a Scottish eight that struggled to get to grips with the driving maul of the Italians - a tactic that ultimately yielded two tries for the Murrayfield visitors.

Scotland face England and Ireland on 14 and 21 March respectively, two fearsome packs and renowned exponents of the maul.
"Obviously we [the forwards] are going to get heavily criticised, especially for the driving maul," said Dickinson. "There were times today we should have stopped it and didn't.
"They're going to look at the video and think driving maul is a weakness - we have to get back on the training paddock and look to get better."

Looking ahead to the Calcutta Cup clash at Twickenham against an England side that fell to their first defeat of the tournament in Ireland, he acknowledged the Scots must add a ruthless streak to their game.
"It is special - there's a lot of history between Scotland and England, and they're flying high at the minute.
"We just have to focus on us - sort out our discipline, try and control the game a little bit better. We're still creating opportunities but not converting our possession and pressure, so it's going to be tough, but we've got two weeks to stand up and dust ourselves off.

"We probably do need to be more brutal on the park - being brutal by being clinical, finishing teams off, being more physical. It's a hard thing to take but if you were in the changing room after the game you would have seen a lot of anger."

BigGee wrote:
The problem in the back row was not Cowan, who has played well all tournament. It was Beattie and to some extent Harley, who has not looked the player we know he can be. I do wish everyone would stop harking back to Barclay and Brown though, as if everything would be fine if they were playing. In case you have not forgotten, we were crap most of the time they were playing for Scotland as well. There really is no point in trying to role back the clock. We do have better options than Beattie, who I think may well have played his last international game. Harley to probably needs to take a step back to find his form. I could easily see both Ashe and Denton playing in the next game.

BigGee wrote:

George Carlin wrote:JB (playing as no.8) scored yet another try for the Scarlets against Ulster over the weekend.

I can't remember who made the remark again but I completely disagree with the comment that Barclay had to go to an average team to look good. Seems fairly strange given that a number of the Scotland team play for Edinburgh and are deemed acceptable in quality, whereas Scarlets currently sit above them in the league - yet some people seem to feel that we can look down on Scarlets players. He is a very important guy for them and sometimes captains the side.

I think the issue here is that he would not have chosen the Scarlets as a career move. If he had been worthy of a contract with a better team, with genuine chances of winning things then he would have got one. His problems started in his last year in Glasgow and for Scotland when he forgot that he had to put the hard yards in and was shown up by a younger, hungrier player who was in all probability, not as good as him. Toonie would not have been the only coach who would have noticed that.

To be fair to him he has done well down at the Scarlets and does perform for them. In professional sport though you don't always get the second chance, especially when you spout off about things you are not happy with on Twitter!

Time has moved on now and he is yesterdays man. Cowan is playing well at OS, Watson is hungry and champing at the bit. Blake may well turn out to be a decent player as well. Let them have their time. John Barclay can still look back on his Scotland career with some pride, even if it could have been so much more productive!

BigGee wrote:

EWT Spoons wrote:

funnyExiledScot wrote:Can't see any big personnel changes, we just those being picked to play to their potential. Ford, Dickinson, Harley and Beattie were all to varying degrees ineffective. Laidlaw was slow, Horne is out of his depth, Seymour was quite and is returning to match fitness and Lamont offers absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Too many passengers, and frustratingly too many good players playing well beneath themselves.

Of that lot, Laidlaw, Horne and Lamont should be dropped for England.

I'd probably add that I think Beattie should also be dropped.  I know Denton has only played one game since returning from injury, but he can't do any worse than Beattie has so far.

Denton played well on Sunday, looked hungry!

BigGee wrote:2. Second Row, not quite as clear cut here. Swinson actually played quite well, albeit that he may have limitations at this level. Assuming JG is a shoe in, do we go for Hamilton or Toolis, or just keep TS. eacjh of those options has its positives. Toolis looks a prospect we need to develop, JH has experience and is big and nasty enough not to get shoved around by the English forwards and TS will graft away all day and can also play the off loading game that we are trying to develop. I am not sure what the answer is here but can't help feeling that going with Big Jim is a backward step and that longer term it may well be better to get Toolis bloodied and up to speed.

RDW_Scotland wrote:I just can't see Vern dropping Laidlaw - it is a big deal to drop your captain mid-way through the 6N.

It saddens me to see the other captains - they would never be dropped, and most are the first names on the teamsheet

O'Connell
Robshaw
Warbuton
Parisee
Dusautoir
-
-
-
-
-
Laidlaw....

funnyExiledScot wrote:My captain pick would be Stuart Hogg. Big ego, full of himself, totally backs himself ball in hand and spikey with the opposition. Ref management could be an issue (particularly given his lack of proximity to the action), but he's absolutely nailed on at 15 as our best player.

Jonny Gray as pack leader.

SH-C should certainly start at 9 against England. He has the pace to cause them trouble around the fringes and get us on the front foot. His goal kicking is a concern, but with our feather weight pack we're hardly going to slug it out for a 9-6 victory.