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Stuart Hogg will miss the start of 2024/25 Top 14 season – report

Former Scotland full-back Stuart Hogg has reportedly been injured at Montpellier (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Stuart Hogg’s comeback has suffered a setback, with media in France reporting that an injury will see him miss the start of the 2024/25 season with Montpellier. The ex-Scotland captain announced in July that he was coming out of retirement and had signed a medical joker deal to move to the French Top 14.  

That announcement was made a year after he brought forward the date of his originally scheduled retirement. Hogg has stated in early 2023 that he would finish as a player at the Rugby World Cup. However, that October sign-off instead took place in July last year when he revealed he was retiring with immediate effect after slowing down on the training field with the Scots.   

Upon retirement, Hogg immediately went into TV punditry, signing a deal to work with TNT Sports. However, he eventually came around to the idea of ending his retirement from playing, and it was four weeks ago that Montpellier began pre-season training with Hogg following a difficult 2023/24 campaign where they needed to defeat Grenoble in a play-off to avoid relegation to the Pro D2.  

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Their new season, though, will now get underway without new signing Hogg, who could be sidelined for a six-week period. A L’Equipe report read: “According to our information, Stuart Hogg will miss the start of the season with Montpellier.  

“A summer recruit of the MHR, the Scottish full-back (32 years old, 100 caps), who had ended his career a year ago before the World Cup, was injured in training. After a good recovery – the MHR returned to the field on July 17 – and interesting physical signs, Hogg suffered a torn calf.  

Fixture
Top 14
Montpellier
22 - 26
Full-time
Lyon
All Stats and Data

“The average time of unavailability for such an injury being around six weeks. Hogg will therefore miss the start of the Top 14 season, and in particular the reception of LOU in the opening match on September 7. The Scot signed with the MHR as a medical joker for Anthony Bouthier, the victim of a ruptured cruciate ligament in a knee at the end of April who is not expected to return to the field before the beginning of 2025.” 

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J
JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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