Rugby stars have a bad hare day at tough army-style boot camp

SCOTLAND’S rugby stars had to kill rabbits at a survival camp to toughen them up.

The commando-style World Cup training tactics saw the hulking players put through their paces by French marines in the Pyrenees.

They yomped to a mountain camp where they were left freezing huddled around a tiny camp fire, it’s claimed.

The team’s tough head coach, New Zealander Vernon Cotter, told the bruisers the boot camp would toughen them up.

Former player Jim Hamilton, a 6ft 8in tall lock who weighs 19 stone and was on the trip, said French commandos who could have given them a run for their money on the playing field showed them how to kill and cook the rabbits for their supper.

Saracens star Hamilton said: “A French army guy at the camp pulled out this rabbit and says, ‘this is how you need to kill it’.

“Needless to say, the rabbits didn’t taste that succulent – they were a bit tough.

“But that’s all we had for food, with 35 baguettes.”

The rabbit incident came as the Scotland squad arrived at their pre-World Cup training base at Font Romeu in the Pyrenees last year.

Speaking on his rugby podcast, Hamilton revealed how the stars were left wondering what was going on after being told to turn up at a five-star hotel in Edinburgh.

“I was thinking, ‘Well, this ain’t toughening-up!” he laughed. He said the flight out to Barcelona reminded him of being on a stag do.

“We got on a mini-bus, got to Edinburgh Airport and boarded a Ryanair flight to Barcelona – no leg room, no nothing. Like a stag do.

“We get off the plane in Barcelona and yellow school buses pick us up, and they take us for hours upon end across the border into France.

“We get dropped off after four or five hours and all we can see are loads of mountains. After a hike we end up at a check point in the mountain. Vern says, ‘lads, before you go, this is about toughening up – let’s see who wants it’.”

Hamilton, 33, said the basic nature of the camp was something to behold.

“So, we were sat round the campfire, and we were like, ‘OK, where are we sleeping?’. Vern says, ‘we’re sleeping here’.

“No sleeping bags, no tents, no kit – there are 40 big rugby players sat around the campfire, and literally we are freezing all night long.

“Some of the boys are really struggling with it.

“Then at four in the morning, this horn goes, and you’re like, ‘nobody is asleep anyway, so we don’t need that’.”

No-nonsense Cotter, 54, was appointed Scotland head coach in May 2013.

He was unavailable to comment on his super tough training regime last night.

However, a Murrayfield source confirmed the team-building exercise had taken place. He stressed that the rabbits were killed properly and humanely, and added: “There had been a demonstration of the process by a marine.”

He also said Cotter did not order any of the players to kill a rabbit.

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