Stuart Hogg hails Scotland’s ‘special’ Six Nations victory over France

Captain’s side upset table leaders and ended their Grand Slam hopes

Scotland earned their first home win of Stuart Hogg's captaincy (REUTERS)

Stuart Hogg says Scotland achieved something special after putting the brakes on France’s Grand Slam ambitions.

The full-back celebrated his first home win as captain as Gregor Townsend’s team stunned France 28-17 at Murrayfield.

Where England, Italy and Wales had all failed, Scotland succeeded as Sean Maitland’s double and a late score from Stuart McInally ended the clean sweep hopes of Fabien Galthie’s team in this season’s Six Nations.

And Hogg admits the victory is among his proudest in a dark blue jersey.

“It’s definitely up there,” said the Exeter Chief. “We talked before the game about how great memories are made by great opportunities.

“Today was a great opportunity for us as a 23 and as a country to achieve something special. I believe we’ve done that.

“We worked incredibly hard to give ourselves every opportunity of winning and I’m incredibly proud of the boys. We took it to France.”

France played out the final 44 minutes with 14 men after Mohamed Haouas’ moment of madness cost Les Bleus dear.

The prop saw red after landing a punch on Jamie Ritchie’s chin, but Hogg insists the dismissal was not the key factor in the visitors’ downfall.

“It didn’t change what we wanted to do,” he said. “We wanted to be physical up front and exploit their blitz defence as a back line.

“We stuck to our plan. You get a feel for momentum. We discussed [kicking to the corner at 7-6 down] as leaders, we backed ourselves.

“Just after the red card, as well, we thought about going to the corner. The more we discussed it, we decided to take the three. We’ve got a good group of leaders and we trust each other.

“We spoke about staying together as a backline and not giving them an easy out to fly out and belt somebody. We took that away from them. The strength of theirs, we hopefully turned it into a weakness.

“We don’t strive for perfection, because we believe it doesn’t exist. But we feel we’re in a good place.”

PA