WE THREW BIG CHANCE AWAY, ADMITS HOGG
we’re about. We talked in the changing room afterwards about this loss being a minor blip, a bump in the road.
‘As for the personal records, I think I might think and look back on them in a few hours when I’ve calmed down but just now I am gutted.
‘My focus now is to make sure I recover well so that I am in a great place physically and mentally come Monday to get ready for the game against Japan.’
Lamenting the way his team were unable to build on their half-time lead, Hogg continued: ‘We shot ourselves in the foot at times.
‘We didn’t get to vital clear-outs and our set-piece didn’t function. We just didn’t control the game as we’d like to.
‘Yes, we were put under pressure. But, at times, we didn’t help ourselves.’
It was the second-half collapse that really stung for Hogg, who felt his team should have been able to build on their half-time lead.
‘I’m gutted as we went in at the break fully in control of that game,’ he said. ‘In the first 20 minutes of the game, we defended like our lives depended on it and, at half-time, we spoke about making it hard for them, but we were second best at times.
‘In everything we did well in the game, we also let ourselves down whether it was a clear-out here and there or carrying the ball into the wrong areas.
‘These things make a massive difference and we shot ourselves in the foot there.
‘We can take a little bit of confidence from the teams we have beaten but the reality is that’s in the past.
‘We need to deal with the here and now and we have lost. Unfortunately, we didn’t stay in every single moment and little parts of our game let us down.
‘It cost us, it’s cost us very dear. It sounds negative but we need to be at our best to beat the best. We did some good things, but we let ourselves down at vital times.
‘We are fortunate in that we get to represent Scotland again in seven days’ time, so we have seven days left with this group to improve and we need to maximise our time together.
‘We need to enjoy each other’s company but, ultimately, we need to learn from this experience.
‘You can’t give a team like South Africa, the world champions, easy avenues into the game.’
Scotland gave away 15 penalties — five within the first ten minutes — to only nine in the whole game from South Africa.
The home side were giving away so many in a row that referee Angus Gardner called Hogg across to warn him the next player who gave away one would be sin-binned.
That didn’t happen but Hogg said the high amount of penalties given away by his team was not acceptable and cost them territory and points.
‘The majority were at the breakdown,’ he said. ‘We talk about reloads and being able to carry the ball to score but we didn’t get our clear-outs at times.
‘We were punished at the breakdowns, but fair play to the South
African jacklers — they had threats across the field and we didn’t deal with them.
‘We talked about them challenging us and we wanted to be our best as you’ve got to be on it for 80 minutes and we weren’t. Anything less will not win you Test matches – it’s as clear as that.’ Although massively disappointed the Scotland captain felt there was ‘method in the madness’ of their game plan which was designed to soak up pressure then break out and stretch South Africa.
‘We got ourselves in good positions and we wanted method in the madness in the way we played,’ he said.
‘We wanted to move South Africa around which is a game plan that they don’t want and we do.
‘We want to play at a high tempo to show off our individual talents but we didn’t reload quickly enough to be accurate.
‘On another day, we could keep that scoreboard ticking over. As I said, I am bitterly disappointed with the result and we now have to regroup and get ready for the next game against Japan.’