The 23-year-old signed a new two-year deal with Edinburgh Gunners earlier in the week.

With Scotland team-mates Chris Paterson, Mike Blair, Hugo Southwell and Alastair Kellock all signing new contracts at Edinburgh, flanker Hogg believes many of the squad can now focus fully on the RBS 6 Nations Championship clash with England at Murrayfield.

Hogg said: Obviously, it is good to commit myself to another two years.

It is nice that that is now done and dusted and it is the earliest it has been done for a few years now.

All the boys are happy to have this sorted now and out of the way.

Everyone is staying because there are such good things happening at Edinburgh, hopefully.

We all get on really well which makes a real difference.

It does help that we know each other so well and it puts a lot of people's minds at rest to know you have a job for the next two years.

Now we are really looking forward to the England game and cannot wait for the match to come.

We are just tweaking bits and bobs at the moment because the heavy work has been done.

But Hogg admits the Scots must be ready for an early onslaught from Andy Robinson's team at the weekend.

He said: England are a big side. They are relatively predictable - you know what they are going to do but what they do, they do very well.

They are a powerful side with a lot of big guys and will be running hard and really just trying to bully us to start off with.

So, defensively, we have really got to be solid and knock them back and not let them get the upper-hand.