The second half of the 2013/14 season did not end well Stuart Hogg. Although, his misfortune was not all of his own doing.
Heading into a home game against Zebre, Glasgow head coach Gregor Townsend was already displeased at his young fullback, for making a trip to Belfast in an effort to negotiate a transfer to Ulster.
On RugbyPass' The Offload podcast, Hogg explained his reasoning behind his planned move:
All my Dad's side of the family are from Northern Ireland. I remember my agent at the time was like if we go Ulster we can get x,y and z. And that was like night and day compared to what was on.
And I was like ye lets go for it, and that was the first opportunity I had to move, I was like this would be very cool.
I went across on a Wednesday. I was named on the Tuesday to play for Glasgow on the Friday night, and funnily enough it was against Ulster.
And on the Wednesday I was across in Belfast speaking to Mark Anscombe trying to sign a deal that would take me across to Ulster.
Anyway at the airport on the way back, Gregor texts me saying 'my office, eight o'clock in the morning'. I was like oh shit what have I done. I knew exactly what I'd done, I was in bloody Belfast airport.
Stuart Hogg Try Is Stolen By Niko Matawalu
READ HERE: Stuart Hogg Was Not Happy With Media's Line Of Questioning After Ireland Loss
In Hogg's own words, the Zebre fixture was a guaranteed five points, and he took full advantage of the weak Italian defence with two early tries.
As you can see in the clip above, while in the process of scoring his third try, which he set up himself, his scrumhalf Niko Matawalu had other ideas.
I scored two tries in like the first ten minutes, went to score my hat-trick, ran the length of the field, done a chip and chase, kicked it on.
And I'm running down the right hand side touchline, getting ready to literally dive on the ball to score. And I seen Niko coming from the other fucking touchline, rapid, as if he's going to steal the try.
So I've looked at him and I'm like get tah, I'm having this, it's my hat-trick. He's like me no understand and I'm like get away..... Anyway he dives on the ball, we both go to do it, nearly knock it out of each other's hand.
He scores it, slides into the advertising boards, and I just get up and start walking away and Nico's like stuck under the advertising boards and all that.
This was like literally like two or three minutes before halt-time. Gregor walks in, first thing he says, and we're like thirty odd points up at this point, first thing Gregor says is well you didn't celebrate with your teammates that's you off, you're never playing a game for the rest of the season. I was livid mate absolutely livid.
And Niko was under the advertising boards, if he hadn't stolen my try I'd have picked him back up.
Townsend stayed true to his word and Hogg was benched for the Pro12 final, where his side were hammered by Leinster.
Naturally pissed off by the situation, Hogg was sure that he wanted to go ahead with a move to Ulster, until the deal fell through.
Back to pre-season with Glasgow he went with his 'tail between his legs', and apologies ready to be dished out.
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