Hawick’s Stuart Hogg set to pick up 99th Scotland rugby cap against France at weekend

Stuart Hogg during a Scotland training session at the Oriam in Edinburgh on Wednesday (Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group/SRU)

The Exeter Chiefs full-back had to go off after sustaining a head injury 13 minutes into the Scots’ 35-7 victory against Wales a week ago on Saturday at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium, with Blair Kinghorn taking his place, but he returned to training this week and come Sunday evening he’ll only be one game away from becoming one of only four Scottish players ever to make it into triple figures for international appearances.

Hogg, 30, is currently Scotland’s fourth most capped player of all time, behind only Sean Lamont on 105, Gala’s Chris Paterson on 109 and Kelso’s Ross Ford on 110.

The ex-Hawick player is also their leading try-scorer ever, with 27, and one of seven Borderers among the national team’s all-time top ten, ahead of Hawick’s Tony Stanger on 24, Paterson on 22, Kelso’s Alan Tait and Gala’s Townsend on 17, Hawick’s Darcy Graham on 16 and Selkirk’s Iwan Tukalo on 15.

Gregor Townsend, right, with Finn Russell during a Scotland training session at the Oriam in Edinburgh on Wednesday (Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group/SRU)

He’s the only representative of the region in Sunday’s starting XV, Graham still being ruled out by injury, but ex-Melrose loosehead prop Jamie Bhatti has been given a place on the subsitutes’ bench and will claim his 28th cap if he’s brought on at the Stade de France in Paris.

Hawick’s Rory Sutherland and Cameron Redpath, son of Kelso’s Bryan Redpath, capped 60 times for Scotland between 1993 and 2003, also feature in Townsend’s 40-strong squad for the championship.

Hogg played for 66 minutes of Scotland’s 29-23 victory against England at London’s Twickenham Stadium, their third Calcutta Cup win in a row, on Saturday, February 4.

Scotland have collected the maximum haul possible of ten points from the first two rounds of this year’s Six Nations, putting them second in the table behind Ireland.

This year is the first time they’ve won their opening two fixtures of the championship since its Five Nations days back in 1996 – with Melrose’s Jim Telfer as head coach and Rob Wainwright as captain of a team including Townsend, 49, and fellow Gala hero Michael Dods – and they went on to make it three in a row that time round, a feat they’ll be hoping to repeat.

Also in Sunday’s starting XV, captained by Jamie Ritchie, are Kyle Steyn, Huw Jones, Sione Tuipulotu, Duhan van der Merwe, Finn Russell, Ben White, Pierre Schoeman, George Turner, Zander Fagerson, Richie Gray, Grant Gilchrist, Hamish Watson and Matt Fagerson.

Joining Bhatti, 29, among the replacements are Fraser Brown, Willem Nel, Jonny Gray, Sam Skinner, Jack Dempsey, Ali Price and Blair Kinghorn.

Looking ahead to Sunday’s game, kicking off at 3pm, Townsend said: “There’s excitement about the challenges ahead of us and the opportunities, but there’s also determination.

“We can play much better than we did in our first two games and we know our performance will have to improve if we’re going to get a win in Paris.”