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Stuart Hogg will miss the start of 2024/25 Top 14 season – report
By Liam Heagney
Stuart Hogg’s comeback has suffered a setback, with media in France reporting that an injury will see him miss the start of the 2024/25 season with Montpellier. The ex-Scotland captain announced in July that he was coming out of retirement and had signed a medical joker deal to move to the French Top 14.
That announcement was made a year after he brought forward the date of his originally scheduled retirement. Hogg has stated in early 2023 that he would finish as a player at the Rugby World Cup. However, that October sign-off instead took place in July last year when he revealed he was retiring with immediate effect after slowing down on the training field with the Scots.
Upon retirement, Hogg immediately went into TV punditry, signing a deal to work with TNT Sports. However, he eventually came around to the idea of ending his retirement from playing, and it was four weeks ago that Montpellier began pre-season training with Hogg following a difficult 2023/24 campaign where they needed to defeat Grenoble in a play-off to avoid relegation to the Pro D2.
Their new season, though, will now get underway without new signing Hogg, who could be sidelined for a six-week period. A L’Equipe report read: “According to our information, Stuart Hogg will miss the start of the season with Montpellier.
“A summer recruit of the MHR, the Scottish full-back (32 years old, 100 caps), who had ended his career a year ago before the World Cup, was injured in training. After a good recovery – the MHR returned to the field on July 17 – and interesting physical signs, Hogg suffered a torn calf.
“The average time of unavailability for such an injury being around six weeks. Hogg will therefore miss the start of the Top 14 season, and in particular the reception of LOU in the opening match on September 7. The Scot signed with the MHR as a medical joker for Anthony Bouthier, the victim of a ruptured cruciate ligament in a knee at the end of April who is not expected to return to the field before the beginning of 2025.”
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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