Hibs skipper Hogg says guilt gave him determination to play through the pain

CHRIS HOGG says coming off injured against Hearts was never an option – even if his wrist had been broken.

The Hibs skipper played the final half hour on Saturday in agony after a challenge from David Obua left him with a deep gouge up his right arm that needed hospital treatment and five stitches.

The former Middlesbrough defender admitted that he thought he had suffered a fracture but was determined to play out the remainder of the match because of the guilt he felt at being forced out of the game against Rangers just a fortnight ago because of a back injury.

Hogg revealed he suffered sleepless nights after that 1-0 defeat to Walter Smith's men as he lay awake and racked his brains to see if there was any way that he could have avoided coming off.

The memory of that mental torture was enough for him to vow that he'll never come off injured again, unless he's hooked by his manager or has to be carried off on a stretcher.

Hogg said: "The doctors and physios thought that it was an open fracture at the time because of the size of the wound and it was a really sore one.

"Sometimes, though, you have just got to get on with it because you need to think about the welfare of the team. After I had come off at half-time in the game against Rangers, I said to the physio on the Monday that I would never do that again.

"I told him that I would never come off unless I couldn't walk or the manager decided to substitute me.

"So there was never in any doubt in my mind that I was coming off.

"I really couldn't live with myself after coming off in that Rangers game, even though I needed to because of my back.

"It is something that I don't like doing and I don't think that I slept for two or three nights after that match, just thinking about whether I could have stayed on, if there was anything that I could have done to have played the second half.

"I know in my own mind that I had to come off but it doesn't make it any easier."

His decision to go back on was music to manager John Hughes' ears as fellow central defender Sol Bamba was already missing through suspension and Hogg added: "As soon as I said that I was alright, he was just telling the doctors to hurry up getting me strapped up and back on to the park. I was never coming off as far as I was concerned, I had already made up my mind as I was walking off to get it bandaged up.

"I didn't know if it was broken or not but even if it had been, I was never coming off, not in a million years.

Hogg said the injury brought back painful memories of a similar wound suffered to his other wrist almost exactly five years ago when he accidentally put his hand through a glass door. Then the former England youth team skipper had to have surgery to repair the damage and he was relieved to discover that this time around the injury wasn't on the same scale.

Recalling the moment that the injury happened, Hogg recalled: "It was just a tackle and David Obua has just tried to get out of the way really, I think he tried to hurdle me but, instead, he ended up coming down on my arm and I took his full weight.

"There was nothing that he could do, there was no malice, and it is just one of those things that happens in football from time to time.

"I couldn't feel much to begin with and then I just saw the hole in my arm and I knew that it was quite bad.

"It was painful but the hardest things for me was that it took me back to when I did my other wrist years ago and I didn't want to have go through all of that again.

"But, at the end of the day, this one has turned out to be a scratch compared to that one.

"At that point in the game, we just needed to get me back on and back playing and the manager was over asking how I was.

"I went to A & E after the game and had a quick X-ray to see what the situation was and it was a relief when it came back that there was nothing broken, just badly bruised and swollen.

"Apart from a few cuts and grazes, I will be fine for the game tomorrow night, I will just strap it up and get on with it – you've got to at this stage of the season."

Tomorrow night's clash with Motherwell is make or break for Hibs as a victory would allow them to leapfrog the Steelmen, while defeat would hand Craig Brown's side fourth spot this season. Despite there being so much at stake, Hogg reckons that the game will be easy on the eye for the neutrals.

But the quality of the entertainment doesn't matter to him as long as his side are the ones celebrating at the end of the 90 minutes.

He said: "It is a massive game for us, we let ourselves down again at the weekend and it is becoming too much of a theme in recent times.

"It is like a cup final for us and a chance to get above Motherwell in the table and try to finish the season on a bit of a better note.

"I think that it will be a good game to be fair, because they will be thinking exactly the same thing as us. We know that we can go above them if we win on Wednesday and they know that, if they win, they're safe in fourth.

"We have got to go there and take all three points, I don't care how we do it, just as long as we get the win. It is going to take a bit more than we have been doing in the last few weeks, but I know that we are more than capable of going there and getting a result."

To get the victory they need, though, Hogg stressed that he and his team-mates have to rediscover the art of killing their opponents off.

Hibs have lost their last six league matches but, in flashes, have shown the kind of form that shot them up the table earlier in the season and Hogg knows that they are capable of putting one over on Motherwell if they go into the game focused and with the right mental attitude.

He said: "I thought that we were comfortable against Hearts until they scored and, even after that, I thought that the game would maybe finish at 1-1 but then we lost a bad second goal.

"That's football for you but we have got to eradicate these things from our game and the quicker the better.

"Doing that is easier said than done but it's about being big enough and brave enough to deal with situations and with that little bit of anxiety that seems to be floating around.

"We have got to learn how to win games again because we haven't done that for a while now. I think that, at 1-0 in the derby, we sat back a little bit and subconsciously thought to ourselves 'what do we do now?'.

"We seemed to stop playing after we scored and that came back to bite us.

"We had played pretty well up until that point and we have to make sure that we do enough to get ourselves over the finish line in games.

"If we can get a goal on Wednesday night then we have to have enough big performances from the players out on the pitch to make sure that we hold on to the lead."