STUART HOGG proved his doubters wrong in Rome last night by scoring a sensational 22nd-minute try.
The Scotland captain’s score set his team on their way to a morale-boosting first win in this year’s Six Nations campaign.
“I’m very happy,” Hogg said. “We’ve worked incredibly hard over the past couple of weeks to give ourselves every opportunity to win – and we’ve executed.
“The exciting thing is we can get better. But we’ll enjoy that one. We’ve kept the home side to zero points, so I’m very pleased with that final outcome.”
Hogg scored his try from 60 yards out, showing the pace and balance which established him as one of the most dangerous broken-field runners in world rugby to banish the painful memories of the ball he dropped over the line against Ireland in round one and the fumble on his own line against England a week later.
“We talk a lot about creating counter-attack ball with our kicking,” he said. “We managed to manipulate the Italian back three, they kicked loosely – and that’s when we come alive against an unstructured defence.
“There is a lot of method in the madness and thankfully we managed to come up against an unstructured defence.
“It’s a huge confidence boost and we’ll kick on now. The challenge is to take it on to France [in two weeks’ time].”
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