Stuart Hogg has stirred the pot ahead of Scotland’s visit to Twickenham in the Six Nations this weekend by claiming that the English don’t respect them, and that they are “all about themselves”.
The Scotland and British and Irish Lions fullback said in an interview with the Daily Mail that his experience of English rugby has led him to believe that those south of the border consider his country to be inferior.
“The English are a fantastic team but they’re pretty much all about themselves at times,” Hogg said. “They don’t really respect us and we find that pretty frustrating. There will be a certain number of people that do respect us but, no matter how good our performance is, on the whole they don’t.”
The Glasgow Warriors player admitted that, given the national side’s current run of form (no wins from three in the Six Nations so far), the team had some work to do to earn back that respect that he perceives to be missing.
“We’re not really in a position to make them respect us when we’re zero wins from three, so for that to happen we need to go down there and shut them up with a great performance and a big win.”
Hogg cites an example from this season’s Champions Cup, in which his side Glasgow competed in the same pool as Bath, as further proof of English rugby’s disdain for Scotland. Glasgow hammered the English side 37-10 at Scotstoun, and pushed them all the way at the Rec before eventually succumbing to a 15-20 loss.
Asked to explain his comments, the 22-year-old said: “There are loads of different things. Take Bath, for instance, in the European games. We pummelled them at home in Glasgow and almost beat them down there, yet their coach never once mentioned us after the games.
“After they went through, they said they had a tough pool with Toulouse and Montpellier, but never once mentioned us. That kind of sums it up for me and, with the way the lads go on with Greig Laidlaw down at Gloucester, it’s quite clear that they don’t respect us.”
Hogg’s Scotland teammate Laidlaw, who currently plies his trade with Gloucester in the Aviva Premiership, recently claimed in an interview with the Scottish Daily Mail, that “England don’t rate Scotland very much”.
The duo’s comments will add fuel to the fire ahead of Scotland’s trip to Twickenham, with the away side in desperate need of a win if they are to avoid the ignominy of the wooden spoon.
Photo by: Patrick Khachfe / Onside Images
43 replies on “Stuart Hogg: “It’s clear England don’t respect us””
I see he’s been to the same school of pre-game interview technique as a certain Mr Gatland…
Good to see Hogg stirring it up a bit and I’m glad the players share the same frustrations the fans have!
Somebody call him a waaaaambulance.
England cricket didn’t respect Bangladesh and look what happened there. If Hogg is correct watch out on Saturday.
A problem stored up ever since international cricket was sold to SKY, and so for the last 10 years many youngsters get no exposure to it. There is a warning there for Rugby to make sure that the 6N and world cup stay on free to view TV. Playing these team sports in public schools is never enough!
“There is a warning there for “English* Rugby to make sure that the 6N and world cup stay on free to view TV. Playing these team sports in public schools is never enough!”
There, fixed it for you ;-). Rugby is far from a public school sport in Wales and we also get loads of the Pro 12 and Welsh Prem shown on free to air – it’s not just about the 6Ns here.
You’re spoilt Brighty, but you haven’t fixed it unless I move to Wales!
I just mean that although the opportunities are there at rugby clubs around England, something has to inspire those kids (and parents) to want to approach their local club. It starts with exposure. There’s a lesson to be learnt from what has happened in cricket.
Aye, it was a slightly tongue in cheek comment twelvestocks – living in Wales but working in England one of my hobby horses is the constant reference from English footie fans about rugby being a public school game, for posh boys by posh boys, etc. It totally ignores a) the country about 20 miles from them, and b) in the West country, in my experience, it’s everyone’s game.
But the stereotype persists.
On the flipside my son did play a 7s tournament at an English public school this weekend and we did have a laugh playing “Oli bingo”. (you get a point for everytime you hear someone shout “Go On Oli!!!!” – we racked up a few dozen very quickly). Is it the law that every English rugby team has to have an Oli? 🙂
(4 trophies on offer at Birkhamsted, Welsh teams went back over the bridge with 3 of them…).
I guess that’s the same as watching a Welsh team play and getting a point for every Jones 🙂
Would you like some cheese with that whine?
I tend to believe that ,if not the players, the English commentators, for sure overate all England teams whether it be rugby,soccer,cricket, or whatever! With respect to the Scotland rugby team, u need to earn respect and they haven’t come close!
Apart from the BBC, who seem to hate England and suck off Wales. The “30-3” win became irrelevant when England beat Wales last year. But the BBC was still milking it in the run up to this year’s 6 Nations.
Whilst I do agree that the BBC seem to love the Welsh Rugby Team – the reference to the “30-3” was because it was the most recent time England had played in Cardiff…
This is def in the eye of the beholder. The BBC is an English rugby machine. They have John “So anyway, let’s talk about England” Inverdale in charge of the coverage FFS! Half time of any game that doesn’t feature England – a preview or review of the next/last England match. 2003 mentioned more often than anything else. Sir Clive and Guscott cosying up in every pre and post match.
Guscott seems to more complimentary of the Welsh side than any other – and we have to put up with Jonathan Davies on commentary! He genuinely just cheers on Wales the whole game without actually offering any (relevant) insight on the game – can be infuriating!
I’m sure you are right though; I probably don’t notice them talking about England as much as I do when they are discussing Wales.
You only have to put up with JD when it is Walws at home or against Fra/Ita. It’s the same with all of the “colour” commentators so it’s not bias. The bbc just have a “homer” for colour or for when it’s against a non BBC area team. So Andy Nicol, Brian Moore and the utterly awful Phillip Matthews. He’s the one I can’t stand. In his eyes Ireland never do anything wrong but it’s all said with a slyness. It’s all “I can’t see what the red has seen there” when there is a slo shot of an Irish forward mangling someone’s ankle. He never comes right out and disagrees, just sly and constant jibes. Ireland never, ever do anything wrong in his eyes.
Say what you like about Jiffy but if we are being crap then he doesn’t hold back. I love listening to him precisely because he is the homer colour so a lot of the time is going through the same agony as me. Brian Moore does the same. Andy Nicol is just a permanent ball of rage but that’s just because of Scotland’s results over the last decade or so.
I have to agree with Brighty – you can play drinking games around Invedale mentioning England when they’re not playing.
I always found the commentators would unduely praise the English backs, but never give their forwards enough credit. They haven’t been as bad as they used to be when they had Nick Mullins though.
I actually find the Irish commentator (Phil something) the most annoying these days. I have no problem with partial commentators when they’re not saying stupid things (Moore, Davies and all the Australian commentators I’ve heard), but he really does come out with some rubbish in praise of Ireland (this is not to say I think Ireland are anything less than the best team in the championship this year).
Christ all mighty Brighty you are starting to sound like me going on about the public schools and BBC.
But yes you are spot on there…….the BBC is as I have said many times a publically funded English rugby propaganda machine during the 6n.
Notice when Keith Wood was speaking we had the info box telling us that he had played England 5 times and lost 4 of those games.
England lost and it was coverage over to Songs of Praise pronto.
Had England won there would have added time just to gloat as per usual.
If you want respect, earn it on the field. Don’t throw your toys out of the pram and p*ss and moan to the media. Pathetic.
Im sure Laidlaw will thank him for those comments… I doubt they were intended to be passed on to the press!
Sounds like sour grapes to me, I doubt Lancaster and co are relaxing at all this week.
Its certainly character building to be a Scotland fan!
Scotland played 3, lost 3, but this could have been so easily played 3, won 3. Ireland showed how to beat England so, I for won, will not be surprised by a Scotland win this coming weekend. They have a canny knack for beating England when it is least expected.
It certainly hasn’t been expected in the last 7 games between these two teams, of which Scotland have won precisely none. In the last two fixtures, England have won by a 20 point margin.
Do England think they are better than Scotland?
Of course they do they are ranked 6 places higher and haven’t lost to them at home for 32 years.
Does that mean they don’t respect Scotland?
No Stu what a pathetic attempt at mind games
I don’t think one single person expected Glasgow to beat bath.
Glasgow smashed them at home, and that certainly earned them a lot of respect.
There is plenty of respect for Scottish rugby down here. Both regions have done well in recent European competitions. People do take note, and I don’t think anyone reckons that Scotland will be a push over with Cotter in charge.
Lancaster, will respect Scotland, and will be wary of the Scottish team, and rightly so. But, if we’re honest, there is no way that Scotland should beat England. It doesn’t mean they can’t, or that they won’t.
“I don’t think one single person expected Glasgow to beat bath.”
Seriously, I did, and why not? Top of the Pro 12 for the second season running, great team with running rugby, playing at home. Bath – a slightly below top tier English team with some new talent to bed in, playing away from home.
I expected Glasgow to win.
On the general issue – not sure what Hogg is going on about. Why is it important that the English rugby respect the Scots? Smash their faces on Saturday and they still won’t but that will not matter.
Maybe few did then!
I didn’t, Bath were in great form at that point of the season.
Andy, maybe Hogg has a point then 🙂
If Bath were playing a top/2nd of the table Eng Prem team away from home in the cup you wouldn’t expect them to win, would you? So why expect them to win to a top 2 Pro12 team away? Because you see top of Pro12 as lesser than Eng Prem? This is a genuine question, not trolling i.e. it’s what I infer from what you’re saying and if it is the case then why would you think that?
Really? I’d have been really shocked to see Bath win away in Glasgow – thought it would be closer than it was but I expected Glasgow to win at home against Bath.
We had 5 back row players missing against the Pro 12’s form side, I was onlysurprised by the magnitude.
What is the point of such inane whining? The opposition pay it no heed, the fans see through it? Do we really need to feed the press with this drivel every game. Perhaps this is a sidestep Hogg failed to take?
It doesn’t matter if we’re shit, it only matters if England think we’re shit.
Superb player but a daft perspective.
Every other year I travel up to Murrayfield for the Calcutta Cup game and every other year we get the same tired stereotypes trundled out by some who should know better, and some who are unable to;
English are arrogant – tick
English don’t respect the Scots – tick
All English rugby players are public school posh boys – tick
For some strange reason – even now – Rob Andrew, Jeremy Guscott and Will Carling get name-checked as the posh, arrogant Scots hating totems of English self-centered sense of superiority.
The Twickenham games are slightly different as most of the Scots fans are English-based, and have a slightly more “aware” view of the world.
Its a real shame that an experienced player should come out with this twaddle. It doesn’t really encourage “respect” does it?
Off Coure England do not respect Scotland , they are bottom of the table and England are still in it . Regardless of emotion and talk that is a fact. So it is on everybodys mind , even if it is at the back of it.
What a load of twaddle! I work in secondary state education where rugby is always on offer (Mostly the boys and yes the girls don’t take it up in favour of footy. It is a preference that is all of the parent and child whether to take it up – no more no less.)The phrase “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” springs to mind. The kids even get tickets for heaven’s sake to Twickenham and go on tours abroad. Correct me if I’m wrong but don’t think tickets to Wembley turn up in the post at Eton. If you propagate the class myth you are doing rugby a disservice. The only player I can think of who went to a high profile public school In the premiership is Anthony Allen. He’s not even in the England 1st team. Even in Carling’s day Dooley was a copper and J. Leonard a brickie (and brilliant players they were too!)You’re on dangerous ground with this one Brighty!
Yes Web Ellis (if my memory serves me right went to Harrow or was it Rugby – one or the other)but he was playing footy at the time. Thank god he was otherwise he wouldn’t have picked it up and run. I’ve done the opposite and tackled someone whilst playing footy (got a bit bored and frustrated with my own lack of skill compared with my colleagues! Haha)
Leave class out of it. In the modern game it has nothing to do with it. One of the things I would argue that makes it the game it is (not so tribal). Let’s concentrate on positives of the game not the negatives! Thanks Webb Ellis whoever you were and regardless of where you went to school!
Umm, why am I on dangerous ground? I’m the one who said its just a stereotype that it’s a public school game in England and in my experience of the West Country at least it isn’t. Think you’ve been desperate to vent on this one Alex but you’ve chosen the wrong person to vent to. Preaching to the choir.
I come into rugby in a state school so there is certainly no hard a fast rule.
However, I think you’ve got your stats wrong on the leading England players. Joe Marler went to Brighton College (in fact, a huge proportion of the Quins squad went there). Robshaw went to Millfield.
I think you’ll find almost all of the England squad actually went to a Private School.
I should point out the caveat that quite a few went to Private Schools on sports scholarships – but still. There is a huge issue within rugby in England that Premiership clubs simply pick players up from within private schools.
Alex,
Google the England players and you will find they are overwhelmingly former public school boys whereas the Welsh players are state educated.
You’ll never remove the class element from the Wales v England clash ever and this means that Welsh fans always support whoever England are playing. This was the case last game in Dublin in the Wetherspoons pub I was in.
Why????
1:Compare the Range Rover bunch with their champers and hampers at HQ (as Peter West called it) and the beer drinkers on St Mary St in Cardiff. The teams and the supporters therefore represent totally different social, economic, political and cultural backgrounds and that’s b 4 you add the national differences.
2:The hymn singing which used to be prevalent with Wales is a direct result of Welsh Chapel culture.
3:The pre-match speech the Wales captain allegedly gave was during the 1985 Miners’ Strike
‘Remember lads…the English fans drinking their G+Ts are laughing as the miners and their families go hungry tonight’.
4: To everyone living in my part of South Wales the English rugby team represent the public schools, the officer class, the establishment, the Tory Party, Thatcherism and all the evils it brought to our part of the World. (34% male unemployment) in mid 1980s and that was b 4 the last mines/coal works were closed down by the Wicked Witch from Grantham.
The English football team just does not have the same associations. Local kids wear Liverpool,Man Utd football tops etc because they follow Premiership Clubs but they would not be seen dead in an English rugby club top.
You just have to accept that the men in white represent something that so many Welsh people dislike because of politics, economics or history.
If you read some Welsh History books you would understand a little more. Start with John Davies ‘History of Wales’
There is some truth in what Enoch is saying. When you come from a country that was only recognised officially as such in the last decade or so then you naturally bristle at the perceived country responsible. However, I would say it is much more complicated than a “Working Class Welsh v Posh Toffs English” cliche when it comes to the rugby and history.
The miners strike was devastating in England as well. It’s an incorrect cliche to say that English fans were exclusively from the areas not hit.
“To everyone living in my part of South Wales” — I suspect you and I were brought up in similar areas (I’m Garw Valley) and I would not say everyone.
I disliked a lot about the English rugby team in the 80s/90s – pompous, preening and a massive sense of entitlement as to the stewardship of the game and where it should go. Larry, Dawson and especially Healey are still insufferable blowhards. Will Carling is an absolute tw… But as Alan points out there were also many likable players – Hill, Back, Moore etc. who did not fit the stereotype.
And as I keep repeating, anyone who’s ever been to The Shed for a Glaws match, or been with Exeter or Cornish Pirates fans knows that this “posh” cliche is just that, a cliche, in the same way that assuming all Welsh rugby players were class warrior sons of miners is (JPR is a consultant surgeon and one of the “poshest” Welsh people I’ve ever met).
The truth is that I grew up hating them because they always walloped us…
Brighty – It was the All Blacks that made JPR posh – they are the ones who gave him an interest in surgery.
DDD
Hello…….obviously they do because because those schools (independent) major on the sport. Unless you are advocating some Marxist policy or a form of ‘positive discrimination’ (quota system for the EPL depending on where you went to school) it will continue to be the case!
It’s more complicated than that Alex and I fear we may get into class politics but ….
Private schools can attract, on scholarships, the better rugby players from across their area. This leaves the non-private schools with the rest of the players. Those teams are therefore inferior, they get tired of being walloped by the private schools so the sport in those non-private schools withers. They, as you say, go off and play football instead. I agree it will continue to the case but I think that addressing the problem of money==life chances, and therefore lack of money reduces life chances, isn’t Marxist, it’s just basic humanity.
There are many more aspects to this as well that, unfortunately, involve class (if you get a vague sniff of a football chance when you’re from an average salary family you would give up everything to pursue that lottery ticket – if your parents are pretty well off then you’re less likely to base your decisions purely on the chances of financial stability for you and your entire family..). Right, now I do sound like class warrior.
Interestingly we have problems with rugby now in Welsh schools due to the academy systems. They’re taking the best players leaving school U18s squads severely depleted, motivations drops, etc. The amount of schools taking U18s rugby seriously is now depressingly low in South Wales.
Given on that you BLEAT about England’s vastly different playing figures, resources available to the national team, and media perception; has one of you ever, and I mean ever, factored proportion of contribution to the BBC. I bet that the vast majority of viewers are English for every game, and contribute the most to the license fees.
Also, English rugbies heartlands are predominantly middle class, even working class. Devon, Cornwall, Leicstershire, Northamptonshire, Coventry are not huge economic engines, and don’t represent the vast majority of the Twickenham hoard – which to my mind are not rugby fans. The players are mainly recruited by the private schools for 6th form – with the advent of the AASE league though the real powerhouses are local authority colleges (like Sir Gar in Llanelli) such as Hartbury etc…..
Rant over