Stuart Hogg: 'We shot ourselves in the foot' versus Boks

Scotland captain Stuart Hogg shrugged off his record-equalling performance to bemoan the mistakes he believes handed South Africa victory in the Autumn Nations Series.

Hogg’s brace of tries tied him as Scotland’s all-time top try scorer but the full back diverted all his attention to the team performance – which he believes was not up to their potential.

The Exeter Chiefs man pointed to failings at the breakdown, line-out and scrum, which he believes caused them to lose control of the tempo of the game.

Hogg said: “You could say the Springboks were dominant – I would probably disagree.

“I would say we probably shot ourselves in the foot at times.

“We didn’t get to vital clear-outs, our set piece didn’t function at times and we just didn’t control the game in the manner we would like to.

“Everybody will look in and say ‘it was all the Springboks’ and yes we were put under pressure by them, but we didn’t help ourselves.

Hogg’s scores in either half pulled him level with Ian Smith and Tony Stanger on 24 tries for the national team but the 29-year-old was reluctant to dwell on the individual achievement.

He said: “It’s not about that, it is about winning test matches. It is about being in a position to keep the momentum going as a national side.

“I think maybe later when I have calmed down I’ll look back on that but my focus is to make sure that we recover well and the boys are in a great place, physically and mentally, come Monday.”

His head coach was happier to pay tribute to the man he handed the captaincy to ahead of the 2020 Six Nations campaign.

Gregor Townsend said: “To equal the try-scoring record, I know it is an individual thing, and we are all confident he will go and break the record over the next few games, or few years.

“There are a lot of years left in him and he has been a brilliant captain over these past two years for us.

“He showed his quality today again.”