Hogg: We can’t get carried away or we’ll be punished
SCOTLAND captain Stuart Hogg insists his team cannot wait to get on the field to face Ireland at Murrayfield today but has warned they will ‘slip up’ if they get too ahead of themselves.
The Dark Blues have not played for a month since the 25-24 defeat by Wales after their February 28 clash with France was called off following an outbreak of coronavirus in Fabien Galthie’s squad and they are raring to go.
But Hogg believes it is important they keep focus or they will be punished by experienced Ireland.
Scotland sit fifth in the Six Nations table and need victory to get their campaign back on track.
‘We’re absolutely champing at the bit to get going. It’s been three or four weeks since we last played. That’s a challenge on its own with not a lot of boys not having had game time,’ said Hogg.
‘The result against Wales wasn’t what we wanted but we’ve done a lot of reviewing since then and worked incredibly hard on our game. We’re just buzzing.’
A solid start is imperative to build a foundation and Hogg wants to see his side on the ball from the first minute.
‘Our sole focus is on performing for the first 20 minutes tomorrow and taking it quarter by quarter.
‘If we look too far ahead of ourselves, we’re probably going to slip up. We will concentrate to make sure we start the game in the best possible way and hopefully grow in confidence as the game goes on.’
Hogg believes his side can take confidence from a productive spell on the training ground and is relishing the challenge presented by Ireland.
‘The quality in training has been right up there and it’s given us a huge amount of confidence that we can go out there and implement our gameplan in attack.
‘We can really starve teams of possession if we can hold onto it. But defensively we have to front up and make sure we’re physical and we’re dominant in everything.
‘Like Ireland, we have a huge amount of experience, a huge amount of quality that know fine well how to play rugby.’