Scotland legend Gavin Hastings believes Stuart Hogg still has room for improvement and has urged the full-back to take his game to another level in this year’s Six Nations.

The 26-year-old, who scored during his side’s 33-20 opening day win against Italy and was magnificent throughout, played every game of Gregor Townsend’s first Championship campaign in charge last year as Scotland finished in third place – their best result since 2006.

Hogg, who will join Exeter Chiefs from Glasgow Warriors at the end of the season, has also previously won Player of the Championship in 2016 and 2017.

But former full-back Hastings, widely considered to be one of the best Scottish players, insists Hogg has not yet reached his full potential in the position for his national side.  

“He clearly has the potential to be even better than he is – and he’s already pretty good,” said Hastings, speaking on behalf of Land Rover.

“I’d just love to see him just open his legs and have a go a lot of the time. He’s just got to choose when to do that and I think he’s getting better at doing that.

“It would be pretty nice if he was to have another blistering Six Nations this year, he’s certainly had a few of those in the past and we’d like to see him at his best.

“He’s certainly one of these players who can bring crowds to the edge of their seats and I think that makes it interesting as well.”

Scotland have not tasted Championship glory since 1999 – the last year of the Five Nations era – but Hogg has said he “truly believes” they can end their 20-year wait for a title this year.

And Hastings has welcomed the positive messages coming from the Scottish camp, suggesting that their formidable home record has given them confidence to dream big.

“Scotland have done pretty well over the past two or three years and we’ve kind of built back up Murrayfield in terms of a tough place for opposition to come to,” he said.

“That’s what you want from your home stadium and you get most of the crowd behind you – I think Murrayfield has become a great place for Scottish supporters to back their team again.

“For a while the supporters were coming along to Murrayfield hoping to see Scotland win, now there’s a real expectation about Scotland winning and that was the same back in my day.

“When we played in the 80s and 90s, most people came along and expected to see Scotland win – there’s a psychology there I think if you’ve got the supporters feeling like that.

“The team senses that and it gives them an extra bit of confidence as well.

“I’d rather the say positive messages like, ‘We can win it’, rather than, ‘We’ve got no chance’, or whatever else even though they have the second, third and fourth best teams to play.

“They have won against teams that have been in the same position in the world rankings before, they’ve run them very close - such as the All Blacks at BT Murrayfield 18 months ago.

“They have beaten most other teams since then as well, it’s a place that they feel comfortable in and it’s right that some of the more senior players have an air of confidence about them.”

Gavin Hastings is a Land Rover ambassador. Land Rover shares and understands the values of rugby. @LandRoverRugby