"Australia's thumping win over Wales a warning to Scotland' - John Barclay

John Barclay was part of the Scotland team that registered a famous victory in Australia in 2012

Scotland should use Australia's crushing victory over Wales as a warning, says John Barclay.

The Wallabies ran in five tries in a sparkling display on Saturday at the Principality Stadium.

"You could maybe tell Australia had played a lot recently and Wales hadn't played together as a unit," said openside flanker Barclay, 30.

"That's something we have to learn from. It's important we don't fall into that trap as well."

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Michael Cheika's side had lost seven of their previous 10 internationals before their visit to Cardiff, but any notion that Scotland may catch them in a rut this weekend was blown away with the display against Wales.

"Obviously, I play with a lot of the Welsh boys and I spoke to a couple of them in the week leading up to it and they were feeling good about things," said Scarlets man Barclay.

"Sometimes you have those days but the manner of the defeat would probably be the most disappointing thing for them.

"I exchanged a few text messages here and there. They were bitterly disappointed so you don't want to pry too deep. But you can see a lot from the video where they went wrong."

'A unique challenge'

Barclay says the Wallabies' high-tempo brand of rugby presents "a unique challenge" for Scotland, but is confident they have the game-plan to combat it.

"One of the main differences is the speed everything happens at," he said.

"Certainly they want to play fast ball, they want to play with the ball in front of them, moving the ball. Every team's goal in defence is to slow it down, if not turn it over, so nothing changes there really.

"They present a unique challenge, but I believe defence is relatively straightforward. But the speed of how it happens in international rugby, you don't have the recovery time that you maybe do in a pro rugby game."