National rugby captain Stuart Hogg tells of joy at leading Scotland to victory over Australia

The Scots beat the Wallabies 15-13 in front of a 67,000-strong sellout crowd at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium this afternoon, November 7, thanks to tries by Hamish Watson and Ewan Ashman and a conversion and penalty by Finn Russell.

Hawick’s Hogg and his team-mates ended a five-match winning run by Australia to claim their third consecutive victory against them and make it two wins out of two so far in their autumn test series.

"To be the best team in the world, you've got to beat the best, and Australia are right up there,” said the 29-year-old.

“It’s not every year you get the opportunity of playing these southern hemisphere teams.

“The last time I played against Australia was in 2016, so it doesn’t come around all the time.

“We like to challenge ourselves against the best teams.”

Hogg missed the Scots’ last two victories against Australia, both in 2017, as he was away on tour with the British and Irish Lions for one and was out injured for the other.

“It was brilliant. I absolutely loved it,” said the Exeter Chiefs star.

“We’ve worked incredibly hard the last little while to be in a position to win test matches, and how good was it to do it at a full Murrayfield?

“We’ve been waiting for over 600 days for this and it was worth it.

“For me, there’s no better feeling than winning here. It’s the best thing you can get, and we absolutely loved it.”

Head coach Gregor Townsend agreed, saying: “We were getting quite emotional in the box towards the end because it’s been such a long time since we had supporters here and that victory was for them.

“We haven’t had that atmosphere for such a long time, and obviously we respect our opponents greatly.

“It was fantastic to win today in front of 67,000.

“It was a tremendous victory. It wasn't our best game but that resolve, the impact the bench made, it was just tremendous.

“I think at half-time we knew we hadn’t played our best rugby in terms of accuracy, but there was a fire about us in that second half which was great to see, both in terms of our set piece and our defence.

“We really grew as the game wore on. It brings us an extra bit of belief for next week and we will be better for this experience.

“It's a huge challenge next week, the world champions, but we believe we will be ready because we believe this team has more to give.”

Next in the series is a game against South Africa at Murrayfield next Saturday, November 13, with kick-off at 1pm.

Full-back Hogg was one of two Borderers in former Gala star Townsend’s starting line-up, the other being Darcy Graham, another former Hawick player.

Hogg is now on 86 caps and Edinburgh’s Graham, 24, is on 21.