The 100-times-capped former Scotland captain ruptured an Achilles tendon 54 minutes into current club Montpellier Herault’s 19-13 French Top 14 win at home to fellow Mediterranean coast side Perpignan on Saturday and has since undergone remedial surgery. Hawick’s Hogg, 33 next month, is expected to be out of action for between six and nine months, ruling him out of Montpellier’s four remaining fixtures of this season and at least the first three months of their next campaign, possibly not returning until early 2026. Even the best-case scenario would wipe out a quarter of the two-year term he signed up for in July last year, reportedly with an option for a third year, as injury cover for French international Anthony Bouthier, now back in action at full-back, prompting a switch to fly-half for Hogg. Hogg’s season-ending injury was sustained in a tackle by visiting right-winger Tavite Veredamu while challenging for a high ball. Before going off, he’d kicked 11 of the hosts’ 19 points – two penalties, one conversion and one drop-goal – with Bouthier, 32, also kicking a penalty and Lenni Nouchi touching down a try. The Borderer has played 16 matches for Montpellier this season, scoring 112 points all together, after making a comeback from the retiral he’d announced in July 2023. His last match prior to moving to the south of France and making his try-scoring debut there in a 26-22 home defeat to Lyon last September was as a replacement for previous club Exeter Chiefs for a 47-28 loss away to La Rochelle in April 2023 and he went on to work as a pundit for TNT Sports in the interim. Montpellier are currently ninth in the table, on 47 points from 22 fixtures, ahead of a visit from second-placed Bordeaux Begles on Sunday, May 11. They’re only Hogg’s third professional club after representing Glasgow Warriors from 2010 to 2019 and Exeter from 2019 to 2023. The Borderer – also previously with Hawick, Ayr and Stirling County – is Scotland’s fourth most-capped player ever, his century of international appearances to date having been outdone only by Kelso’s Ross Ford with 110, Gala’s Chris Paterson with 109 and Sean Lamont with 105. He’s also captained his country more often than anyone else except for Jedburgh’s Greig Laidlaw and Buckinghamshire-born David Sole, having taken on skippering duties 22 times to Laidlaw’s 40 and Sole’s 25. On top of that, he was the Scots’ top try-scorer from 2021 – with 25 at that point, later rising to 27 – until July last year, having since been overtaken by both fellow Borderer Darcy Graham, now on 30, and Graham’s Edinburgh teammate Duhan van der Merwe, with 31.