Six Nations: Hogg tired of Weir’s bragging

Stuart Hogg: Fed-up of Weir 'bragging'. Picture: Ian Rutherford

Glasgow 15 Hogg was first to seize his Warriors team-mate amid the wild celebrations that followed the dramatic kick 10 seconds from time in Rome.

The 22-year-old wrote his name into the RBS 6 Nations history books as he kept his composure to send his successful effort through the posts and seal a 21-20 win for the Scots.

But Hogg says he is already tired of 11-cap Weir’s never-ending stories about his magic moment.

“He must have talked about his drop-goal at least six or seven times now,” said Hogg with a grin.

“He has done umpteen interviews about it too. We trained up at Buckhaven High School last week and I asked one of the kids to ask him about his drop-goal. Dunccy, with both hands, started talking about it. You just can’t shut him up about it. He’s shameless.”

All jokes aside, though, Hogg believes Weir’s heroic act could be the spark he needs to become a star performer for Scott Johnson’s team.

He said: “The drop-goal could be the making of him as a top-class international fly-half. For us to be a good team we need talented players at eight, nine and 10.

“I think we have got that already and now it is all about gelling that into place. We will always make mistakes but it is about how we react and against the Italians the reactions were all positive, which is what we were after.

“Dunccy is a cracking player. If he has got a good platform to play off, that is when he shines. The Italian game is probably the best he has played in a while.

“That was because we were going forward. Hopefully if we can get good set-piece ball, then he will be doing the exact same against the French.”

Scotland were staring three successive defeats in the face when Weir’s last-gasp kick earned them their first win of this year’s championship.

France are next up at Murrayfield on Saturday and Hogg hopes his side can now march on after shaking off humiliating defeats to Ireland and England.

“I think Duncan’s drop-goal could be a turning point for us,” he said.

“We went out there to Rome with the full intention of getting a win and we played well in some aspects of our game, although we were disappointed with others.

“It was a cracking drop-goal that won us the game ultimately and there is a good bit of confidence going around the team right now. That is exactly what we are after.”

France kicked off their own campaign with impressive wins over England and Italy but slumped to a 27-6 loss to Wales a fortnight ago, and Hogg admits Les Bleus are difficult to predict.

“France are a fantastic team, full of fantastic individuals but you have got to expect the unexpected when you face them,” he said.

“We only have a rough idea of what will be coming our way because they can be erratic.

“But they are quality on the counter-attack so our kicking game needs to be spot-on. That comes from Greig at nine, Dunccy at 10 and myself at 15. We can’t give them cheap field position and good ball to counter-attack off.

“On the flipside to that, they can isolate themselves at times and if we get a good kick chase then we can get points off that.”

Meanwhile, Johnson has been forced to change his 23-man squad for Saturday after Alasdair Dickinson was ruled out through injury.

The Edinburgh prop has not recovered in time from the calf injury he sustained against Italy last month and his place among the replacements will be taken by Glasgow’s 26-times-capped Moray Low.