Hogg blanks Paris pummelling by sticking to Edinburgh's game plan

Published on Tuesday 13 October 2009 22:31

ALLISTER Hogg did not appear to be in a trance as he spoke to the media at Murrayfield Stadium yesterday, but the Scotland No8 was struggling to convince reporters that he had overcome the horror of Edinburgh's opening Heineken Cup defeat in Paris at the weekend as he spoke of continuing to play in the Edinburgh way.

He focused coldly on the specifics of how four tries were given away in the opening 29 minutes. The final result of 31-7 was largely immaterial as Edinburgh had been dead and buried by half-time in the Stade Jean Bouin.

The Edinburgh players and coaching team returned to familiar surroundings to plot their assault on the second pool match, at home on Saturday to a burgeoning Ulster side that started their campaign with a confident win at home to Bath last Friday.

Following on from the 45-24 demolition of the Scarlets in the previous week's Magners League clash the Belfast outfit appear to have picked up since they lost 16-13 to Edinburgh at Ravenhill last month. The Stade defeat has probably already been put down by the Edinburgh supporters as another strange nightmare, but the squad have had to analyse the game in more detail before moving on.

Hogg has been here before. He came off the bench with Scotland having been stunned by losing 21 points to Italy in the opening seven minutes of 'that' RBS Six Nations match in 2007, and has played in games with the likes of New Zealand where he shared teammates' frustrations at giving up the early initiative only to rally in the second half. In Edinburgh's colours, he too has rued many wasted first halves, as recently as two weeks ago when the Magners League game at the Ospreys was tossed away early on by mistakes.

He insisted that it was wrong to blame Edinburgh's open style of play for contributing to their downfall, that basic errors were the chief reason, and insisted there should be no tightening-up of their attacking philosophy. "It was frustrating," he acknowledged. "We actually started all right and were playing some good stuff, but Stade capitalised on a silly mistake. John Houston went to pop the ball out, it bounced, their prop was running back and he kicked the ball, and by pure chance it sliced straight into his winger's hands and he ran in untouched.

"The second one was poor defence, and at the third one we put five boys into a ruck, no-one stayed out, the scrum-half popped out the back and the winger picked up and ran in again. So we didn't make them work for 21 points and you can't give a team like Stade at home a 21-0 head start before we'd even done anything.

"But I don't think our plan backfired and we'll do the exact same this weekend – we want to play rugby. It's about making the right decisions though – if there are four guys in a ruck, for example, don't stick your head in, but play scrum-half. That's not playing with blinkers on, but recognising the decision-making process. You can't deny that we did play poorly in the first half, but if you look at those mistakes it's nothing to do with our style; just silly mistakes like bad decisions and missed tackles."

The result was not one to shake Scottish rugby to its core, however, as losing to Stade Franais in Paris is something most expected of Edinburgh. However, it is the pattern of three straight losses now that Rob Moffat's side have to address, and with senior players such as Hogg and Mike Blair falling off the pace at the weekend the concern is that it is not just the young, newcomers to the European stage struggling with the past weeks' heightening pressure.

"We've worked on all these things this week and worked on getting our shape back, and our confidence back," continued Hogg, "and we're feeling stronger the closer we get to the next game. That's two games we've under-performed in and with starts not really given us a chance to be in the game.

"But we're not doing anything different to when we won three games in a row. I don't think we're playing over-elaborate rugby, flinging passes over our head or anything like that, and I don't think we need to change anything, but we need to tighten up.

"It is more of our own doing than the opposition breaking us down which is very frustrating, but fixable, and the beauty of having so many games is that we have the opportunity to right those wrongs this week. I'm looking forward to getting back home and hopefully attracting another large crowd, like we had against Leinster, to give us that extra lift."

Crucially for Edinburgh, Hogg appears to retains a conviction that the team are on the right tracks that will be vital to Saturday's clash, and his ability to lift the team back to the consistency of the opening few games of the season.

"Ulster will be on a high and are a lot better than last season, but we beat them in Belfast earlier this season and we have to win this weekend," he added. "And if Bath beat Stade in Bath then the pool is wide open again. You go into the Heineken Cup knowing that if you win your home games and win two away then you won't be far away from qualifying from your pool, and we can still do that."