He’s got the best strike rate for Scotland since the days of Alan Tait and a historic record could be his for the taking so Stuart Hogg gets a little irritated when he hears talk of “white line fever”.
The flying full-back now has nine tries in 29 internationals, the best since Tait’s remarkable 17 in just 27 tests. But Hogg is still only 22, meaning that the all-time Scotland try-scoring record of 24 set by Ian Smith, “The Flying Scotsman” of the 1920s and 30s, must be in his sights.
Yet although the tries are flowing for Hogg, and most of them involving spectacular runs from deep, the Scots were still being labelled as a team that doesn’t take its scoring chances.
“It does get annoying to hear that,” he admitted. “The positive thing for us it at least we are getting ourselves into the right areas and giving ourselves opportunities.
“In seasons gone by we might not have been in those areas. In the France game we were getting into these positions and forcing it a little, but that’s not what we are about.
“Over the last couple of weeks we have worked incredibly hard on that and we have brought in a couple different features that will hopefully work in Italy’s 22.”
Hogg’s famous interception try against Italy last time the Azzurri were at BT Murrayfield was just one of his length-of-the-field specials England, the USA, Tonga and Wales two weeks ago have also been burned and he recalls it well.
“It was actually a 14-pointer,” he admitted. “They were in under the posts if I didn’t go for it instead it went back the other way.
“It was just one of those where I see space open up and see it’s on. The Welsh one was like that, we want to attack of turnovers, and that’s what we’ll be aiking to do against Italy because we think we can exploit them in that area.
“I didn’t see it was (hooker) Richard Hibbard who was covering me, I just saw the space. The only thing I’m thinking once I get away is `get the ball down and do it as quickly as possible’.”
Italy’s defence is less structured than Wales’ which should provide opportunities for running, but Hogg agrees that the pressure is wholly on Scotland on Saturday
“It’s absolutely a ‘must win’ game,” he stressed. “We have a couple of good performances under our belt but ultimately it’s zero points from two games.
“We’ve been working hard on the training pitch and put the structures in place. If we can get that sorted for the weekend and play well then hopefully we can get the win.
“Italy will make it tough for us, for sixty or seventy minutes we are really going to have to batter into them and not give them a sniff in attack either.”
That means covering the high ball better than they did a week ago, as Italy will have seen Wales trouble Scotland in that area.
“We didn’t have the greatest of days under the high ball against Wales but their kick chase was really good and they really applied pressure to us,” he added.
“We’ve worked hard this week on the boys in the front line having a job to do as well, help give the back three every opportunity to catch the ball.
“There’s been a lot of talk about the ref but we need to look back on ourselves. We had plenty of opportunities to make sure the game was done and dusted. Hopefully this weekend we make amends for that.”