‘My body was horrendous, heinous’
STUART HOGG has revealed the 2017 British and Irish Lions tour acted as a wake-up call because he quickly realised he was in such bad shape compared to his English and Welsh team-mates.
The Scotland captain had just won back-to-back accolades as Six Nations player of the championship when he travelled to New Zealand but has confessed he now knows his condition was “horrendous”. The Exeter Chiefs full-back failed to make the squad for any of the three Tests, losing out to Wales’ Liam Williams, as the series was drawn with the All Blacks.
But the 27-year-old admits it taught him plenty as he mixed with his Six Nations rivals.
He said: “When I got Six Nations player of year in 2016 and 2017, I was 101 kilos and my skinfold [body fat percentage] was ridiculous. Horrendous. “I was in heinous shape. Well, maybe not heinous, but
I wasn’t in great condition. It was only when I went on the Lions tour in 2017 that I realised what it was all about.
“I looked at some of those boys who could play in my position and they had abs sitting on abs and I was like, ‘Holy heck, I’m in bad nick compared to this lot’.
“Jonathan Joseph, Anthony Watson, Elliot Daly, Liam Williams – all in much better condition. I had a T-shirt on one day and Owen Farrell asked me if it was a thermal top because it was that tight. I thought, ‘Right, something’s got to change here.’”
Hogg is hopeful lessons have also been learned following the recent public fall-out between Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend and star player Finn Russell, who was excluded from the Six Nations squad following an incident before the start of the tournament. In an interview with BBC Scotland, Hogg added: “I was gutted with what happened. Finn and I are very close and it was great to hear that himself and Gregor are in a much better place now.”