Scots World Cup exit will ‘eat away’ at gutted Hogg

DE VA STAT E D St ua rt Hogg (r i g ht) ad m it s he and Scotland were not good enough to reach the World Cup knock-out stages.

But the Dark Blues’ star full-back insists the Scots’ early exit will act as a wake-up call to redouble his efforts.

Gregor Townsend’s team crashed out of the tournament after losing to hosts Japan in Yokohama on Sunday.

“We’re absolutely devastated to be heading home,” said Hogg, who will now meet up with new club Exeter. “This has given me the kick up the backside that I probably needed to get better, to learn, to improve, to want to get better. I can guarantee every single player in that Scotland dressing-room is the same.

“It’s a long old time until we come back together for the Six Nations in February but now it’s a time to reflect and realise that things won’t go our way all the time.

“If we were at our best we wouldn’t be going home, it’s as simple as that.

“We can’t make error upon error and expect to win Test matches. Those are the hard facts and the hard truths.

“But I truly believe we have the coaches and players to improve and be in a better place.

“Have we gone backwards since 2015 when we almost made the semis? No. I think we’ve got to take each game as it comes.

“The media will be bored of us saying this but we’ve got to want to learn and to improve and to put our bodies on the line every opportunity we get to play for Scotland.

“No matter what we say now, nothing will change. But I truly believe that this team will be better for having gone through this experience.

“This will eat away at me for a long time and it’s going to hurt.

“But it makes me hungry and makes me want to get better.”

Scotland have been well beaten time and time again this year, with France and Ireland twice running up comfortable wins, while Wales and now Japan have also found it easy to score.

Asked how long it would take Scotland before they learn how to compete against the top nations, Hogg replied: “That’s why I’m going bald.

“These are the things that kill us as rugby players. If we could put our finger on what is going wrong then rugby would be easy.

“But the hard facts are we’re going home a lot earlier than we’d planned and it’s a long time before we’re back together.

“Rugby is built on fine margins but when you give a team like Japan 28 points then you’re going to have to do something exceptional to win a Test match.

“We truly believed we were coming here to do something special but we’ve come up short.

“There were a lot of things that went wrong for us but you’ve got to give credit to Japan. Fair play to them. We’ll be backing them now.”