Scotland international Stuart Hogg has revealed the full story behind his shock decision to retire from rugby just before the World Cup.
Hogg says he felt “completely lost” in the Scotland squad towards the end of his career after stepping back from the leadership group following the decision to take the captaincy from him last year.
The physical toll on his body, which he said meant he’d become the slowest back in the Scottish squad, was affecting his mood and mentality, something he did not want to rub off on his team-mates.
When it came time to make the decision to call it a day, Hogg broke down.
In an interview with Ugo Monye for TNT, the broadcaster Hogg will now work for, he said: “I remember getting to, probably this point last year, and I was going: ‘I feel that I’m emotionally and physically drained with the game’,” referring to a knee injury which ruled him out of the start of the 2022/23 campaign.
“The exciting thing for me was – I was getting my knee operated on – it gave me time away from the game, a chance to work on other areas. When I came back, I just couldn’t get going again. My body dictates my mood and if my body is feeling rubbish, then my whole mood is the exact same.
“I used to get stick towards the latter stages of my career for being out of the changing room as quick as I possibly could, and that was because my mood was affecting everything… my body’s affecting my mood and my mood affected everything.
“I got to the stage, ‘I don’t want to drag my team-mates down because I’m feeling like I am’. So, I was like, ‘do what I have to do, get out of the place’.”
Hogg started pre-season training with Scotland, with the initial plan to retire after a final swansong at the World Cup in France, but he soon realised it wasn’t going to happen.
“Going through the speed gates, I was the slowest back. I’d never been that before. I was in agony with the hard pitches and double sessions. I just got to the point where I was knackered, physically and emotionally. We had a little holiday and I came back here and said to my wife ‘I can’t do it anymore.’”
“Yes, it’s heart-breaking to stop,” added Hogg. “But I’d rather stop now, when I’m happy, then go to a World Cup and not feel like myself and not achieve the standards I set myself and not enjoy it. The love of the game was gone; and when it’s gone, it’s very, very hard to get back as a player.”
The former Exeter full-back agonised over the biggest decision of his life, revealing the tears he shed and the impact everything had had on his family.
“I sit out here [in his garden], day after day, just thinking to myself, speaking to loads of different people. The amount of times I’ve broken down in tears because I thought ‘I have to keep going, have to keep going’, and the realisation that I couldn’t.
“I got to the stage in my rugby career that I was missing my kids growing up,” he said. “When my son, who is seven, turns up to me, and I come home from training, and he’s like: ‘Dad, do you want to go outside and play football?’ And I’m like: ‘mate, I can’t. I genuinely can’t, like I’m absolutely beat’.
“His little face, and he’s out in the rain… I sit there and I watch him, and he’s on his own, and I’m like: ‘this is absolutely breaking me’. I want to be there for my kids.”
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A year ago, Hogg had been Scotland’s captain and was widely seen as one of, if not the, best player in Gregor Townsend’s squad.
But in October last year, Townsend decided to make a change, installing Jamie Ritchie as his skipper.
Hogg said: “It was really, really tough because, as you say, you went from being captain to being a normal player,” he said. “For someone who has had a leadership role for that long to then have nothing, I just felt like: ‘wow, this is a bit strange’.
“I explained everything like this to Gregor and I just felt like, almost like I didn’t belong in that camp any longer, which was mental. The more and more you think about things, I’d sit here in tears and I was like: ‘is this me being silly or is this me being a bit overreactive or is it the reality?'”
He continued: “I said to Gregor, from a leadership point of view, I don’t want to be involved in anything because I want to go in there and purely concentrate on myself and make sure I get myself right because I want to be the best player. ‘You told me that I’m one of the best players in the team, but just let me be that.’
“That’s all I concentrated on, and then I went into the Six Nations and I just felt completely lost because I’d been in the leadership group for the best part of eight years. I just felt like I had nothing there anymore. I just felt completely lost.”
