AFTER 10 months on the sidelines, John Barclay, the former Scotland back row and captain, is to make his comeback for his new club, Edinburgh, this weekend.

Richard Cockerill, the Edinburgh head coach, revealed that his top signing of last summer would be in the 23 to take on Leinster this Friday – probably being eased back into action from the bench – but also warned that despite his reputation Barclay will have to earn his place in the side against new and stiff competition.

On the negative side, Cockerill also confirmed that Blair Kinghorn, the full-back who damaged an ankle against Wales, has had surgery and will be out until the end of the season. Kinghorn had revealed the length of his layoff on Twitter, but this is the first official confirmation.

The main focus, however, was on the positive news with Barclay leading as players return from injuries and international duty, with Cockerill looking to the Test stars involved in last week's comeback against England to add an extra buzz.

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"To come out of that with what they’ve done, gives players a bit of spring in their step. Those that are available this week and come back into the 23 will be a little bit happier and energised than probably if they’d been on the back end of a 40- or 50-point loss," Cockerill said.

Barclay will also play a key role in that, taking over as a key leader in the squad even before he was fit to play.

"John’s been training for the last two or three weeks; you can see the quality that he has as a player in everything that he does," Cockerill said. "He knows the game very well, he just hasn’t played for 10 months.

"His injury is good and he’s fit and ready to go. It’ll be good to have him on the field at whatever stage in the game, and he can share his experience with the rest of the team, but also he’s a fantastic player.

"It’ll be good - I’ve had no back-rowers for months, now I’m having to have awkward conversations cos we’ve got too many good ones. It’s quite a nice spot to be in."

Despite his obvious admiration for Barclay and all he has achieved, Cockerill also warned him that there is no automatic place in the starting side.

"The thing is that he has to be good enough to get into the team because in his absence guys have stepped up," he added. "[Magnus] Bradbury has done exceptionally well, we have [Hamish] Watson, [Vilame] Mata, Jamie Ritchie, Luke Crosbie, so there is some stiff competition in that back row. He has got to catch up very quickly.

"Let’s just see where he gets to at the weekend but his leadership around the group and his knowledge of the game is very, very good and that could well be important for us in the run in though Jamie Ritchie has been growing in to that number six or number seven shirt for Scotland."

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His return is perfectly timed to give the team the boost they need after some disappointing defeats during the international window left Edinburgh struggling to make the Guinness PRO14 play offs.

"We haven’t got the privilege to be able to rest the people we’d like to," Cockerill explained. "We’ve created a situation by not winning games we could have, or should have, that we’re going to have to win our last four games to be in the playoffs, minimum. That still might not get us there.

"The reality is we’d probably like to manage the squad differently this week but the circumstances are that we are going to have to pick a stronger side than we would have liked.”