UNFINISHED BUSINESS
ILL KNOWS the signs only too well, she knows the body language and how to interpret it even without knowing how her husband has played and whether his team have won or lost. One look at his face as he walks through the door and she gets it. He’s not a lot of fun to be around when he’s performed poorly – and that’s by his own admission. He needs to sit quietly and stew for a while. “That’s just me,” says Stuart Hogg, “and I don’t think I’m going to change now, to be honest.”
Exeter Chiefs’ Champions Cup quarter-final defeat by Leinster would have been one of those days. In a recent spell that has brought massive success at his club and enormous progress as captain of his country, that was a bad one. Hogg talks about it as if getting it all out there is a cathartic experience. To say he beat himself up over the way he played – Exeter lost 34-22 – is putting it mildly. “I was crap,” he says. “There’s no point in saying otherwise.”
He blamed himself for at least two of Leinster’s tries. “Defensively I was shocking. Shocking. I couldn’t wait until
