Exclusive: Stuart Hogg opens up on ‘heartbreaking’ decision to retire from rugby ahead of World Cup

In a candid exclusive interview with TNT Sports, former Scotland great Stuart Hogg has said he “broke down in tears” when he realised his body could no longer cope with the effects of playing rugby at the highest level.

His shock announcement came months before he was expected to represent Scotland at the World Cup in France.

“I remember getting to, probably this point last year, and I was going: ‘I feel that I’m emotionally and physically drained with the game’,” Hogg said in an interview with Ugo Monye, referring to a knee injury which ruled him out of the start of the 2022/23 campaign.

“The exciting thing for me was – I was getting my knee operated on – it gave me time away from the game, a chance to work on another areas. When I came back, I just couldn’t get going again. My body dictates my mood and if my body is feeling rubbish, then my whole mood is the exact same.

“I used to get stick towards the latter stages of my career for being out of the changing room as quick as I possibly could, and that was because my mood was affecting everything… my body’s affecting my mood and my mood affected everything.

“I got to the stage, ‘I don’t want to drag my team-mates down because I’m feeling like I am’. So, I was like, ‘do what I have to do, get out of the place’.”

The former Exeter full-back admits the initial plan was to retire after the World Cup “because I’d have a little break, move back home and get everything sorted and then kick on with pre-season with Scotland and give it one last, you know, kick of the ball.”

But he quickly realised nothing had changed.

“It was the exact same feeling like I was getting in pre-season,” he continued. “I just felt I was miles off the pace. I was in agony, the hard pitches, the double sessions. I just got to the point where I was knackered, physically and 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 can’t do it anymore.’

“I was going to training and I was training the hardest I possibly could and then struggling to get moving again the next day. It was almost like, swing your legs out of bed, how’s my knees feeling? I just felt that this is unhealthy. I just decided to say that’s it.

“I sit out here [his garden], day after day, just thinking to myself, speaking to loads of different people. The amount of times I’ve broken down in tears because I thought ‘I have to keep going, have to keep going’, and the realisation that I couldn’t.”

Hogg continued: “I sat down with Gill, my parents, the rest of my family, my agent and I said: ‘I’ve had enough of feeling this way. I don’t feel I’m getting to a standard that I try to maintain, day in day out’.”

The toll it was having on his family was becoming too much, Hogg admits as, on occasions, he couldn’t muster up the energy to play football with his son.

“I got to the stage in my rugby career that I was missing my kids growing up,” he said. “When my son, who is seven, turns up to me, and I come home from training, and he’s like: ‘Dad, do you want to go outside and play football?’ And I’m like: ‘mate, I can’t. I genuinely can’t, like I’m absolutely beat’.

“His little face, and he’s out in the rain… I sit there and I watch him, and he’s on his own, and I’m like: ‘this is absolutely breaking me’. I want to be there for my kids.”

He admits that he was a “completely different person” after making the decision to call it a day.

“Yes, it’s heartbreaking to stop and to realise that that’s it done, but I’d rather stop now when I’m happy than go to a World Cup and not feel like myself and not to achieve the standards I set myself and not enjoy it because the love of the game had gone.”

Having expected to play at the World Cup, Hogg reveals that the thought of announcing his decision to retire to coach Gregor Townsend filled him with trepidation. As he points out, this time last year he was Scotland’s captain and clearly still a key player despite losing the armband in October.

However, the reality was a much more positive experience one than he could have hoped for.

Hogg explained: “That was the thing I probably struggled with most because my biggest thing was I didn’t want to feel like I was letting anybody down. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to be selfish to be selfless, and that’s something I have always gone by.

“I was bricking it to call Gregor, to be honest, because I felt like he went through the selection process of involving me in the wider squad and there’s been some conversations about it.

“Having the conversation with Gregor saying I was completely done was incredibly tough. I explained all the reasons behind it and the best thing about the conversation is that 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. I felt a sense of love coming from it and I was like: ‘this is lovely’.

“He couldn’t have been any better and he said: ‘Look, the door is always open, whenever you want to come back and you want to watch and you want to catch up or you want to get involvement in any way’.

“It will be strange [not to play at the World Cup], it will be different, but I’ve made this call to retire because I want what’s best for me and what’s best for my family, and I believe I’ve made the right decision.”

It is evident that Hogg and Townsend continue to share a good relationship, even if the full-back says the decision to be removed as captain was a painful one.

“It was really, really tough because, as you say, you went from being captain to being a normal player,” he said. “For someone who has had a leadership role for that long to then have nothing, I just felt like: ‘wow, this is a bit strange’.

“I explained everything like this to Gregor and I just felt like, almost like I didn’t belong in that camp any longer, which was mental. The more and more you think about things, I’d sit here in tears and I was like: ‘is this me being silly or is this me being a bit overreactive or is it the reality?'”

He continued: “I said to Gregor, from a leadership point of view, I don’t want to be involved in anything because I want to go in there and purely concentrate on myself and make sure I get myself right because I want to be the best player. ‘You told me that I’m one of the best players in the team, but just let me be that.’

“That’s all I concentrated on, and then I went into the Six Nations and I just felt completely lost because I’d been in the leadership group for the best part of eight years. I just felt like I had nothing there anymore. I just felt completely lost.”

On his new role with TNT Sports, Hogg couldn’t hide his excitement.

“[It’s] exciting, very exciting,” he beamed. “I’m absolutely buzzing, it’s hugely refreshing – the start of a next career, the transition phase, but very much looking forward to it.