FOR someone whose leadership qualities were recognised from an early age, John Barclay has taken an inordinate time to be named Scotland’s starting skipper.

There have been phases during an eventful career when the honour appeared destined to pass him by, but there is no denying the fact that he is the deserved recipient of it for tomorrow’s Six Nations Championship match against Wales.

Barclay was captain of Dollar Academy when they won the Schools Cup in 2004. The following year, he was the first recipient of the John MacPhail Scholarship - an award that has since built up a track record of identifying some of the best young players and coaches in the country. And in 2007, the day before his 21st birthday, he made his Scotland debut against New Zealand at the Rugby World Cup.

His intelligence, his composure and his rapacity at the breakdown marked Barclay out from those early stages of his career as a back-row forward who could not only acquit himself well as an individual but also inspire and support his team-mates. Now 30, he would have accumulated considerably more than his current tally of 57 caps but for falling out of favour with a couple of national coaches, and might well have become established as Scotland’s captain now but for the accomplished manner in which Greig Laidlaw has made the role his own over the past three years.

Now, however, Laidlaw is out of the rest of the tournament after injuring an ankle in the defeat by France. Barclay took over from the scrum-half then, albeit briefly before going off injured himself, and Vern Cotter saw no reason to change his mind about the pecking order for this game at Murrayfield. “John has very good leadership qualities and he’s got good people around him,” Scotland’s head coach said yesterday when asked why he had chosen Barclay.

“The group’s been developing over the last couple of years, and he’ll be tapping into guys like Jonny Gray, Richie Gray, Stuart Hogg, Finn Russell and Ali Price. He knows how to talk to referees and to captain a side, and he’s looking forward to it.

“As soon as Greig was injured in Paris he took over the captaincy. It was something that had been spoken about beforehand – perhaps not with John, but the coaches had discussed it. Captaincy is something that comes naturally to him: he doesn’t have to force it. And he’s respected by the players, so it was pretty easy.”

Cotter may have always respected his new skipper, but he did not always rate his play quite so highly, omitting Barclay from his squad for the 2015 World Cup. The coach chose to praise his new captain’s current form rather than dwell on any perceived deficiencies in his game 18 months ago, while Barclay implied that not a great deal had changed in the way he plays to account for first his return to the squad and then his elevation within it.

“I don’t know if I’m a better player now,” he said. “I feel as though I’m playing some decent rugby. I went back to my club after being left out of the World Cup and continued to play well. I was reasonably pleased at how I responded to it.

“This is not a story about my come-back, no matter what people say. It’s about what I can bring as a captain and as a player. It’s a huge honour: a proud a day for my family and for me.”

Since Barclay moved from Glasgow to Scarlets in 2013 there may have been times when his playing his club rugby in Wales counted against him. This weekend at least it will be an advantage, and he insisted that helping Scotland return to winning ways after defeat in Paris was far more important to him than being able to call himself captain.

“I know it’s a cliché, but I’d much rather win at the weekend,” he said. “I’m not much bothered about titles, and I know Greig is the same – we want to win and that’s enough for us.”

Laidlaw may be expected to resume the captaincy on his return from injury, but Barclay believes he needs to put his own stamp on the role rather than try to do everything the same way as his predecessor - even though, as he explained, the Gloucester player is still having an input. “I think it’s important that I don’t try and be like Greig. That’s not meant disrespectfully - it means that I have to be my captain. I think if I try to be Greig, the players will see through that.

“I have to captain the team as myself. But certainly Greig has put in the structures and practices that the captain is expected [to do], so I guess the guidelines are there. I think as the captain you can go about it how you want to.

“I’ve been texting Greig and will ring him later just to have a chat with him. I can’t try and be like Greig as captain, but since Monday I realised just how much stuff Greig does even in addition to what I saw as a player in the squad.”

Although as a rule everyone in the squad has to share a room, captains are generally the exception. However, Barclay, who has been sharing with back-row colleague Ryan Wilson, has been denied the privilege. “I think you’re meant to have your own room, but Ryan didn’t want me to leave,” he added.