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After weeks of disruption, Hogg reflects on one of his greatest days with Scotland
By Online Editors
Stuart Hogg says Scotland achieved something special after putting the brakes on France’s Grand Slam ambitions.
The full-back celebrated his first home win as captain as Gregor Townsend’s team stunned Les Blues 28-17 at Murrayfield.
Where England, Italy and Wales had all failed, Scotland succeeded as Sean Maitland’s double and a late score from Stuart McInally ended the clean sweep hopes of Fabien Galthie’s team in this season’s Guinness Six Nations.
And Hogg admits the victory is among his proudest in a dark blue jersey.
“It’s definitely up there,” said the Exeter Chief. “We talked before the game about how great memories are made by great opportunities.
“Today was a great opportunity for us as a 23 and as a country to achieve something special. I believe we’ve done that. We worked incredibly hard to give ourselves every opportunity of winning and I’m incredibly proud of the boys. We took it to France.”
France played out the final 44 minutes with 14 men after Mohamed Haouas’ moment of madness cost Les Bleus dear.
The prop saw red after landing a punch on Jamie Ritchie’s chin but Hogg insists the dismissal was not the key factor in the visitors’ downfall.
“It didn’t change what we wanted to do,” he said. “We wanted to be physical up front and exploit their blitz defence as a back line.
“We stuck to our plan. You get a feel for momentum. We discussed (kicking to the corner at 7-6 down) as leaders, we backed ourselves. Just after the red card, as well, we thought about going to the corner. The more we discussed it, we decided to take the three. We’ve got a good group of leaders and we trust each other.
“We spoke about staying together as a backline and not giving them an easy out to fly out and belt somebody. We took that away from them. The strength of theirs, we hopefully turned it into a weakness.
“We don’t strive for perfection because we believe it doesn’t exist. But we feel we’re in a good place.”
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Latest Comments
Well said except Argentina is most certainly not an “emerging nation” as far as rugby is concerned. If you’re making global-social-political claim, then I’m out of my depth entirely.
Argentina by multiple leagues of magnitude played better than Ireland today. Striking away a try in the 2nd minute did not necessarily lead to Arg demise, but as we all know, rugby is such an emotional game that then to be down 12-0 over nothing is gut-wrenching, especially as it was effectively a 19 point swing. Argentina’s fight back throughout the rest of the match was laudable.
A howl of great sadness for a beautiful sport that has criminal administrators, feckless refs, foppish TMOs, idiotic tv pundits, et al. attempting to collectively suicide the whole thing. No fault of the players or coaches necessarily. We have a situation where punitive cards that detract away from the essence and loftiness of the game itself are celebrated to a degree that is pathologically purblind. Rugby has created for itself a fetish for punishment rather than simply allowing the game to be played. Shameful.
Go to commentsAbsolutely right, can’t expect nearly an all kiwi officiating team to know the rules properly 😉
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