Hogg calls on Scotland to repeat England performance against Wales

Scotland captain Stuart Hogg said last week’s famous victory over England will count for nothing unless they can back it up on Saturday against Wales.

Hogg led Scotland to their first win at Twickenham since 1983 with a display against the pre-tournament favourites that was more dominant than the 11-6 scoreline suggested.

Another win for Scotland, who have never won the competition since Italy joined to make it the Six Nations in 2000, would put them in a commanding position.

“We’ve talked about it all this week,” said Exeter full-back Hogg. “Last week was absolutely tremendous, but it’s one thing being able to win, but another thing being able to back it up.

“So yes, we can take a huge amount of confidence from last week. We are growing, but that counts for nothing unless we back it up this week.”

Momentum is clearly with Scotland, who will be chasing a fifth straight Six Nations win.

They triumphed in each of their last three matches in last year’s competition and Hogg believes there is still plenty of room for improvement.

“That’s the exciting thing for us,” he said. “However good we were last week, we still believe we can be better and that’s the exciting thing for us.”

Scotland secured their first win in Wales in 18 years last October, but history is not on their side.

They have lost 16 of their previous 19 encounters with Wales and with France next up in Paris on February 28, Hogg refuses to look beyond Saturday’s clash at Murrayfield.

“For me I’m not looking past the 20th minute of this game,” he said. “We’re very much focused on doing our individual roles and responsibilities to the best of our ability and making sure we give ourselves every opportunity of winning.

“Once we get to that stage we concentrate on the next 20 minutes, so no, I’m not looking too far ahead.”

Wales have been ravaged by injuries following their bruising win against Ireland, but full-back Liam Williams will return to the international stage after serving a three-game ban.

“Liam’s a fantastic player,” Hogg added. “He’s one of the best in the air, both in attack and defence, so I imagine they’ll be doing a lot of cross-field kicks, a lot of contestable kicks to try and get him involved in the game.

“You can’t give a guy like him time and space because he’s going to cause some problems, so I think Liam and the rest of their backline, they’ve all got great individual talent.

“Defensively we’re going to have to stand firm and hopefully shut these guys down. With these kind of boys playing it’s always a challenge for us defensively.”