'A difficult few days' - Scotland choose to close down entire training camp

Scotland are to effectively shut up shop for a week in a bid to stave off last week’s coronavirus outbreak in their training camp.

The union were forced to cancel their Scotland A fixture with England A at Welford on Sunday morning after more players tested positive for the virus after 11 players initially tested positive during the previous week.

Now they have taken the hard decision to cancel all training for at least a week as the squad go into self-isolation. A statement from the union reads: “The Scotland men’s squad and management team will take a break from training camp to self-isolate following consultation with Scottish Government medical advisors.

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“The playing group and management team will return to training next week pending a full round of negative PCR test results.”

Interim Head Coach Mike Blair said: “Having worked closely with Dr James Robson, Scottish Government medical advisors, and our medical team at Scottish Rugby over the last 24 hours, we’ve made the decision to take a break from training camp, during which period, all players and management will self-isolate regardless of whether they’ve been deemed a close contact of positive cases.

“It’s obviously been a difficult few days, however, the health and wellbeing of our squad and management is the number one priority, and that remains paramount in our decision-making process.”

“Scottish Rugby continues to operate an extensive health and safety coronavirus mitigation plan and follow all respective health guidance aligned through Scottish Rugby’s Threat Management Group.”

Scotland, who have eight players on the British and Irish Lions’ South Africa tour, are due to play Romania and Georgia in July.