Scotland captain John Barclay could be out of action for the rest of the year after undergoing surgery on a ruptured Achilles tendon.
The 31-year-old back-row forward suffered the injury early in last Friday’s Pro14 semi-final as his Scarlets beat former club Glasgow Warriors 28-13 at Scotstoun and now faces between six and nine months on the sidelines.
While the timing could have been much worse from the international team’s perspective since, presuming he makes a full recovery, he should be back in plenty of time for next year’s World Cup, it is a brutal blow to his new club Edinburgh’s plans since he was set to key be a key figure for them.
However, their head coach Richard Cockerill believes he can still play a major role in reinforcing the attitudinal changes he championed in his first season in charge to considerable effect.
“It’s naturally disappointing to lose one of our key summer signings through injury but I’m more disappointed for the player as I know how much he was looking forward to getting stuck into pre-season,” Cockerill said yesterday.
“We’re still looking forward to welcoming a man of John’s calibre into the group this summer where I know he will help build on the culture and environment that we established last season.”
Barclay’s standing in the sport was reinforced by Wayne Pivac, the head coach at the Scarlets, as he wished the very best to a player that he had hoped would be saying farewell to the Welsh province after Saturday’s Pro14 Grand Final in Dublin, but is instead heading to Scotland’s capital earlier than planned.
“He has just had the surgery and he may get out of hospital today and
will be heading for Edinburgh where his family have already shipped to.
He will just be resting and recovering there for the first few weeks,” said the New Zealander.
In paying his tribute Pivac inadvertently reinforced just what Edinburgh will be missing in the early part of
next season.
“John has been huge,” he said.“He arrived a season before I did, I have been here four years and he has been a massive part of this squad. Obviously, he is very experienced as a player. He captained the side a lot when Ken [Owens] was unavailable and has done a fantastic job there. He is fantastic with referees on the field. He is a very good player in his own right,massive in terms of the defence, his communication and organisation. He is such a likeable guy. Everyone gets on well with John, no one has a bad word to say about him. He is a true gentleman of the game.”
The Scarlets had, however, no shortage of bad words to say yesterday about the playing surface on which Barclay was injured, when playing on it for the first time.
They did not make any suggestion that the two were linked, but reckoned the artificial surface was to blame for a spate of burns, grazes and blisters that have affected their preparations for Saturday’s final.
“No one trained yesterday and there are some that won’t train today,” said Pivac. “It is burns and blisters, things that won’t stop them playing. It is not ideal but It is one of those things. It was very bad at the weekend, very dry and guys got burnt.
“We have a lot of burns, bad grazes and blisters. It was very hot and very firm. It is what it is; you have to play on them [4G surfaces] but I am not a fan.”
His players were even more critical, with Kiwi full-back Jonny McNicholl suggesting that 4G pitches should be banned.
“I remember going down on the ball and getting a massive grass burn on my backside, like a carpet burn, that is what it is like playing on,” he said. “I said to the trainer – with a few swear words thrown in – that these pitches should be illegal, I don’t like playing on them, there is a high risk of injury.”
Back-three colleague Steff Evans pointed out that the conditions had perhaps exacerbated the problem, but described very unpleasant consequences of the encounter.
“Probably the weather did not help, it was boiling [but] you might as well be playing on carpet; it was shocking,” he said. “I’ve got blisters, a bit of puss coming out and was waking with sheets stuck to my legs about seven times a night.”
Responding to the criticism a spokesman for the Warriors defended the pitch that was installed two years ago because of repeated problems with waterlogging at Scotstoun, saying: “Glasgow Warriors are entirely happy with the Scotstoun Stadium pitch, which was installed only in 2016 and is fully compliant with World Rugby’s performance specification.”
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