HOGG SOUNDS THE ALARM ABOUT SPRINGBOKS
STUART HOGG has warned his Scotland te a m- mates t hey can’t afford a first-half horror show against South Africa if they want to make the knockout stages of the World Cup.
The full-back fears the Scots could find themselves ‘ between 20 and 30 points down’ against the Springboks if they start as poorly as they’ve done in their first matches against Japan and the USA.
Second-half revivals led to two bonus-point wins in Gloucester l ast Wednesday and i n Leeds yesterday, but the Lions star says Vern Cotter’s men won’t get away with stray passes or disastrous scrums against the two-time world champions.
‘No disrespect to the two teams we’ve just played but South Africa will be a totally different kettle of fish and we’ll need to be ready to go at them from the start of the game,’ said Hogg.
‘If we play like we have in our first two 40 minutes of this World Cup, we could find ourselves 20 or 30 points down early on. For us, it’s about starting the game well in what is now a massive match for us.’
Hogg couldn’t pinpoint why Scotland were starting so slowly but knows there can be no repeat on Saturday.
‘ We’ve never been a quickstarting team and we need to work on that,’ said the Glasgow Warriors star after the Scots were left shaken by Titi Lamositele’s first-half try for the Americans.
‘I don’t have a reason why we’ve started so slowly but a few of the boys are maybe nervous at the start because a lot of us haven’t played in the World Cup before. We can’t let South Africa get an early lead as it would be tough to come back from.’
Hogg revealed that emotions were high in the Scotland dressing room at half-time yesterday as everybody knew they had under-performed in trailing the Americans by seven points.
The f ull- back had f ouled up himself in the first half, making a fantastic break before playing a dreadfully low pass to an unmarked Tim Visser.
He told the winger he would make it up to him in the second period and, within two minutes of the restart, he had done just that by playing him in for Scotland’s first try.
‘We were creating enough chances in the opening period but we just weren’t fi n i s h i n g them off and one of those was my wrong- doing,’ admitted Hogg. I knew I’d made a mistake a nd I was g ut te d with it because, obviously, I’d done all the hard work.
‘I said to the boys at the break I’d put it right and I put Visser away early in the second half and that made up for i t. That’s when we really got going.
‘To be fair, the good kick up the backside we got i nside the dressing room in the half-time interval was meri te d . There were a few words spoken and every one of the players knew what was required after the break.
‘We all knew it ha d n’ t been good enough but i t was a fantastic second half from our point of view and it couldn’t have gone much better. For the second game in a row, we scored five tries and you can’t ask for much more than that.
‘We know what we’re capable of and I think a lot more people realise that now, too, with our two back-to-back wins.
‘ We’d have bitten your hand off for this start, being on top of the pool with 10 points, but we’ll stay grounded and move on to the next game.
‘One thing is for sure, though, we can’t even contemplate not starting wel l against the Springboks.’
Winger Visser smiled when he said he had forgiven Hogg for his poor first-half pass when the line was at his mercy.
‘He still needs to buy me some tea and cake to make up for it totally,’ laughed Visser, who is line to keep his place against South Africa at Newcastle’s St James’ Park this weekend.
Visser said head coach Cotter was calm and assertive when he addressed his players at half-time — and insisted there was no sign of panic despite the Americans leading 13-6 at that stage and threatening to add to the list of World Cup shocks so far.
‘ He was obviously sl i ghtly annoyed by what we’d done, but he told us not to let our heads go down,’ said Visser. ‘He said to us that we were making the breaks in the first half and now we had to finish them off.
‘He told us not to be too hard on ourselves, compose ourselves a little bit and capitalise on all the breaks we were making.
‘It was sound advice and those early tries f rom myself, Sean Maitland and Willem Nel inside the first 15 minutes of the restart turned the game around for us.
‘There were mistakes all over the place in the first half but we didn’t do that in the second. In the end, we knew that America would get tired just like Japan had done in the first game and it showed in the second half.
‘Now we have South Africa and we know we have to play well for a full 80 minutes.’