Scotland's Hogg undaunted by powerful France ahead of Six Nations clash
Scotland's Hogg undaunted by powerful France ahead of Six Nations clash
Stuart Hogg says Scotland have the firepower to deny France a Grand Slam even though he rates the Six Nations leaders as one of the best teams in world rugby.
France will kick off Saturday's match at Murrayfield as the only team left in this season's tournament capable of a clean sweep following home wins over Italy and Ireland.
Scotland, however, have won their past two Six Nations matches against Les Bleus and another success this weekend would give them their first hat-trick of victories against France in the championship for 64 years.
"For me they're one of the best teams in world rugby at the minute," Scotland captain Hogg said of France at a pre-match press conference on Friday.
"The victories they've had over the last year or so have been absolutely incredible.
"They've got some quality individual players and seem to be playing well as a team as well. It's a massive challenge but one we feel prepared and ready for. We're really looking forward to getting stuck into it."
Scotland started the Six Nations with a 20-17 Calcutta Cup win at home to England only for Wales to beat them by the same scoreline in Cardiff.
France have arguably the outstanding half-back combination in the game today in Antoine Dupont and Romain Ntamack, with Hogg accepting an improving Scotland defence now faced an acid test.
"We've talked about how much defence wins Test matches and it's something that we're incredibly proud of," said full-back Hogg. "That will need to be on the money.
"Dupont and Ntamack are unbelievable rugby players but they've not played a huge amount of rugby together this season. But they have quality and drive the French team around."
Scotland dashed France's Grand Slam hopes at Murrayfield in 2020 and ended Les Bleus' 2021 title challenge with a dramatic 27-23 win in Paris.
"In the last two wins over France, one we relied heavily on our defence and the other we relied heavily on the way we attacked," said Hogg.
"It's going to take us to be at our best on both sides of the ball but we're capable of doing that. We've spoken a lot this week about staying in the moment in every single passage of play. If we switch off at any point we're going to be punished.
"But that's something we've looked at all week and we feel that we've prepared really well."
Scotland's lax discipline proved costly against Wales and Hogg knows they cannot afford a similar display on Saturday.
"We just have to be in a position not to give away cheap penalties, easy avenues into the game for the French.
"We want to be in a position to move them around, have long ball-in-play time and just be focusing on ourselves."
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A.Weber--MP
