Stuart Hogg has opened up about how the emotional and physical toll his body experienced during pre-season training with Scotland led to him moving his retirement forward.
The former Scotland international and British and Irish Lion will now turn his attention to being a pundit for TNT Sports' coverage of the 2023/24 season and in his introductory interview with Ugo Monye, Hogg said: "It was horrible, a horrible few weeks.
"I remember at this point I was going, ‘I’m absolutely buggered, I feel emotionally and physically drained by the game’. The exciting thing was I was getting my knee operated on and it gave me time away from the game, gave me a chance to work on other areas.
"I came back and just couldn’t get going again. I couldn’t get going. My body dictates my mood and if my body is feeling rubbish then my whole mood is the exact same."
During last season, Hogg turned to his family and his agent to help him decide his next steps: "I said enough is enough. I have had enough of feeling this way. I don’t feel I am getting to the standards that I try and maintain day in, day out and I thought let’s knock it on the head because I don’t want to ruin everything I have done over the past 13, 14 years.
"When I announced my retirement I thought I would do it post-World Cup because I would have a little break, get everything sorted, and then kick on in pre-season with Scotland and give it one last kick of the ball but it was the exact same feeling I was getting in pre-season and I felt I was miles off the pace.
"Like, I was going through the speed gates, that is not the be-all and end-all but I was the slowest back and I was like I have never been that before. I was in agony, the hard pitches, the double sessions, and I just got to the point where I was knackered physically, emotionally. We had a little holiday, time off and I came back here and said to Gill, I can’t do it anymore, I genuinely couldn’t do it anymore.
"It’s horrible, absolutely horrible because I was 30 years old and I said right, that’s it, I’m done and it’s far too young to be retiring but age is a number and fair play to all these boys who play until they are 35, 36 but I physically couldn’t.
"When you are not hitting the standards that I set for myself, there comes a realisation that you have to drop them ever so slightly to try and achieve them. I was going to training, training as hard as I possibly could and then struggling to get moving the next day. It was almost ‘swing your legs out of bed, how’s my knee feeling?’ and I just felt this is unhealthy and I decided to say that is it."
"I saw him referred to as a superstar + that is certainly true while he's also a very good friend"@BryanEasson1's known @StuartWHOGG_ for 17 years, so I caught up with him via @TalkRugbyUnion to talk about the retiring @Scotlandteam full-back
On telling Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend that he would be moving his retirement forward, Hogg was comforted by his response: "Having that conversation with Gregor saying that I was completely done was incredibly tough. I did it literally five yards from here and I spoke to him and explained all the reasons behind it and the best thing about the conversation with Gregor was not once did he try and change my mind.
"He was really happy for me because all he cared about was me as a person which I felt a sense of love coming from that and I thought that was lovely. Like I was expecting, ‘No, I need you to come back, I need you to do this that and the other’ whereas he was concentrating on me as a person which I loved and he couldn’t have been any better.
"He said the door is always open, whenever you want to come back and you want to watch and want to catch up and get involved in any way. He said the door is always open which I was like 'well it’s probably a little too soon to jump back in and see how everything is going' but I had gone from being a player to the No.1 supporter in a matter of minutes.
"I am genuinely quite excited to see how good the boys can be at the World Cup because as much as I would love to be there, I am excited to watch and I am excited to see how they go. It will be strange, it will be different but I have made this call to retire because I want what is best for me, what is best for my family and I believe I made the right decision."
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