Injury puts Scotland’s Hall out of World Cup

SCOTLAND hooker Dougie Hall has been ruled out of the World Cup after sustaining a serious knee injury in training.

The 26-year-old former Edinburgh player, who has secured a return to his former club Glasgow Warriors for next season, tore medial ligaments in his left knee during training on Monday.

Scotland team doctor James Robson said: “Following the injury at training, we arranged for Dougie to go for a scan, the results of which we received last night.

“The scan confirmed our initial diagnosis that he has torn his medial ligament and sustained some additional minor damage to the joint.

“We will now embark on further assessment and treatment but the average recovery time for this type of injury is 12-16 weeks.”

Scotland launch their World Cup campaign on September 9, with a Group C match in Saint-Etienne against Portugal. Italy, New Zealand and Romania are in the same group.

Head coach Frank Hadden does have cover for Hall in his squad, with Ross Ford and Scott Lawson on his provisional list.

Glasgow’s 23-year-old Scotland A player Fergus Thomson was called up yesterday to give Hadden a third option.

Meanwhile, Scotland stand-in captain Chris Paterson insisted he had to quit strife-torn Edinburgh and sign for English giants Gloucester to give himself the best chance of achieving his career ambitions.

But Paterson has confirmed he would probably have switched to the Kingsholm club after the World Cup, even if the bitter dispute over match fees between Edinburgh and the Scottish Rugby Union had not erupted.

Paterson, 29, captained Scotland during the RBS 6 Nations Championship in Jason White’s injury-enforced absence but was released by Edinburgh with one year left on his contract.

That prompted the SRU to demand an explanation from Edinburgh and declare themselves “dismayed”.

He is now set to link up with his former Edinburgh colleagues Alasdair Dickinson and Alasdair Strokosch at Gloucester.