Vern Cotter

[nickdnz]

Anyone think this is even a story if it's a fishing trip?

1. It wasn't just a training session. Cotter didn't turn up to training with a bunch of rabbits and say 'kill these rabbits'. It was an outdoor wilderness course, similar to many team building courses I imagine, which the design with to improve the teams physical endurance and work as a team building exercise. Part of being in the wilderness is catching, eating and preparing food.

2. You still haven't convinced me the players were actually forced to kill the rabbits

However, a Murrayfield insider admitted to the Scottish Mail on Sunday that rabbits had been killed by the players at the camp.
The source said: "This was a well organised, well-resourced team-building exercise led by the Marines, where the guys where shown how to survive. Hamilton was forced to take part in the training with French marines

"They were shown, as a survival technique, how to kill rabbits and some took part. It was done properly and humanely and no-one was forced to do it. Vern Cotter did not order any players to do this.
"Unfortunately, some of what Jim Hamilton has talked about on the podcast has been exaggerated."

This would seem to corroborate Hamilton's retraction. People who seem to suggest players were forced to kill rabbits for fear of being dropped for the World Cup need to get a grip. Like I said, if this was a fishing trip I doubt anyone has a problem.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scottish-rugby-coach-vern-cotter-8579524#Z6TDqzzmpq6X3rFt.99

 

[ratsapprentice]

You're not engaging with the points I've made.

Team unity and the ability for individuals to overcome personal struggle for the sake of a team is absolutely crucial in rugby. The Scotland team needing to eat after a hard day's training combined with a few select players needing to overcome a personal challenge makes this a perfectly valid team building exercise - if the players don't want to kill the animals - the team don't eat.

I can absolutely, objectively point out the dissonance in describing the opting out of killing an animal by a non-vegetarian as a matter of morality.
The only issue of morality in this case is whether it is amoral for someone to refuse to kill something they would otherwise be happy to eat.

There is absolutely no legitimate moral on which to not kill something that you would be happy to other wise eat. If you think there is one, then I'm all ears.

Morality - whether spiritual or not, is based on logic - you have not offered any mechanism of logic by which someone could make the moral stand you claim they can.

 

[Pieter Steph du Teague]

You're not engaging with the points I've made.

Team unity and the ability for individuals to overcome personal struggle for the sake of a team is absolutely crucial in rugby. The Scotland team needing to eat after a hard day's training combined with a few select players needing to overcome a personal challenge makes this a perfectly valid team building exercise - if the players don't want to kill the animals - the team don't eat.

I can absolutely, objectively describe the dissonance in describing the opting out of killing an animal by a non-vegetarian as a matter of morality.
The only issue of morality in this case is whether it is amoral for someone to not kill something they would otherwise be happy to eat.

There is absolutely no legitimate moral on which to not kill something that you would be happy to other wise eat. If you think there is one, then I'm all ears.

Morality - whether spiritual or not, is based on logic - you have not offered any mechanism by which someone could make the moral stand you claim they can.

Okay, I'll engage your point about how overcoming personal obstacles is crucial in rugby. No it's not. I've never been on a rugby pitch and faced the dilemma of having to trample a rabbit to make a tackle. There are times when you have to overcome obstacles, but they're physical, like fighting on through your fatigue. That's not done through killing rabbits, that done through actual fitness training and pushing yourself physically.

Saying morals have to be logical is simply inaccurate. At my school there was a Muslin boy who refused to touch a Bible. I find the idea of Islam and any Religion illogical, but it didn't mean I went out of my way to make him touch a Bible.

This is the same thing. You and Vern may find it illogical to not want to kill an animal if you eat meat. That doesn't mean that Vern should've actively sought out the players that didn't want to kill the rabbits and make them kill the rabbits. That's their choice, your belief that if you eat meat you should kill animals is irrelevant if someone doesn't want to do that.

Your argument that it was some outdoor training course for team building and that meant they had to kill rabbits is also wrong, as the players could've easily taken part in the team building and formed bonds with their team mates without being made to kill rabbits, they could've easily just not taken part in that activity, yet Cotter still made them do it.

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

you don't have to force people to do things they don't want to do for team building, there is no situation where a sane/ competent adult should have to do something against their will

if they only way you can build team camaraderie is through killing rabbits, chances are you are **** at your job

 

[Pieter Steph du Teague]

Anyone think this is even a story if it's a fishing trip?

1. It wasn't just a training session. Cotter didn't turn up to training with a bunch of rabbits and say 'kill these rabbits'. It was an outdoor wilderness course, similar to many team building courses I imagine, which the design with to improve the teams physical endurance and work as a team building exercise. Part of being in the wilderness is catching, eating and preparing food.

2. You still haven't convinced me the players were actually forced to kill the rabbits


This would seem to corroborate Hamilton's retraction. People who seem to suggest players were forced to kill rabbits for fear of being dropped for the World Cup need to get a grip. Like I said, if this was a fishing trip I doubt anyone has a problem.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scottish-rugby-coach-vern-cotter-8579524#Z6TDqzzmpq6X3rFt.99

You need to get into the heads of these players though. All their lives they've been training and dreaming of playing in a World Cup. In the World Cup training camp, the man who's going to decide whether you fulfil your dream or not tells you to kill a rabbit. Regardless of whether it's really going to have any bearing on your selection, you aren't going to risk it, you're going to do exactly what he's told you to do whether you want to do it or not.

Cotter actively making the players who didn't want to kill the rabbits kill the rabbits is why this is a problem to me. A player told Cotter that he didn't want to do it, and Cotter, as head coach who you can't say no to, told him to kill the rabbit. Making someone take somethings life when they don't want to do it is wrong. End of.

Of course, if it really was all exaggerated and Cotter didn't really force the players to kill rabbits, then pretty much all of what's been said is pointless.

 

[Pieter Steph du Teague]

you don't have to force people to do things they don't want to do for team building, there is no situation where a sane/ competent adult should have to do something against their will

if they only way you can build team camaraderie is through killing rabbits, chances are you are **** at your job

Absolutely, I thought the idea of team building was that it was meant to be fun and made the players interact and build relationships. I fail to see where making the players kill animals that they don't want to kill comes into that.

 

[Peat]

Between this and the Exeter Chiefs story, you can tell people are getting bored of no rugby.

 

[smartcooky]

Vern's a Kiwi so its probably ingrained into his psyche that rabbits are vermin (they are an absolute pest in this country)

Every year there is an Easter Bunny Hunt in Central Otago. So many rabbits get the chop that you can't get them all in a photo... this is just part of the haul for 2012

This year, they killed over 10,000, but the record year was 2010 when 23,064 rabbits were shot and collected by 39 teams during the 24-hour hunt.

 

[austingtir]

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/s...coach-vern-cotter-8579524#gcx47C5OsRqpO0EJ.97

I got about 3 lines in and closed it. What a load of crap. Im almost embarrassed to be part Scotsman.

3 pages of wishy washy crap on here aswell im not going to bother reading.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

No doubt the truth will out but this sounds more like peer pressure than team bonding. If any pressure was put on any player then the only net result is a loss of respect for the coach. This is different to being pushed to physical or mental exhaustion.

As for eating meat you're not prepared to kill, I sort of get that argument, but equally we've moved on from the cave. That said, knowing what happens does trouble me and I have cut down on my meat consumption quite considerably.

 

[McTallshort]

Vern's a Kiwi so its probably ingrained into his psyche that rabbits are vermin (they are an absolute pest in this country)

Every year there is an Easter Bunny Hunt in Central Otago. So many rabbits get the chop that you can't get them all in a photo... this is just part of the haul for 2012

This year, they killed over 10,000, but the record year was 2010 when 23,064 rabbits were shot and collected by 39 teams during the 24-hour hunt.

they are vermin here too cooky but because such a large part of the population lives in world completely distant from the realities of pest control/ killing for food/ hunting they scream murder if someone kills a fluffy cute rabbit but happily sit munching an intensively farmed piece of chicken broken down to the size of a nugget and deep fried.

 

[Pieter Steph du Teague]

they are vermin here too cooky but because such a large part of the population lives in world completely distant from the realities of pest control/ killing for food/ hunting they scream murder if someone kills a fluffy cute rabbit but happily sit munching an intensively farmed piece of chicken broken down to the size of a nugget and deep fried.

I don't think anyone here has an issue with the fact that some rabbits died. It's that Cotter made grown men that didn't want to kill rabbits kill the rabbits. That should be their choice, if they didn't want to do it for whatever reason, then that should've been their choice. It had no bearing on rugby playing, so why Cotter felt he had the right to seek out the players that didn't want to kill and make them kill is what I, and the other people who have an issue with what happened, are concerned about.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Wonder how Cotter would have reacted if one of them had simply said "No" and stuck to it. To me, that would have been far more impressive than just caving in to peer pressure.

 

[ratsapprentice]

Jesus christ...

 

[Pieter Steph du Teague]

Jesus christ...

"Jesus Christ, some people don't have the same opinion as me, therefore they re being spineless and silly."

 

[ratsapprentice]

No.

You're not offering any reason for which people who eat meat might reasonably be able to refuse to kill something they would otherwise eat.

Morality is based on reason - not "just because".

 

[BRSTLDRGN]

No.

You're not offering any reason for which people who eat meat might reasonably be able to refuse to kill something they would otherwise eat.

Morality is based on reason - not "just because".

I eat meat and understand where my food comes from, I however am highly squeamish and prone to fainting and panic attacks when faced with things like that so I would object on those grounds. Not to mention its a highly irrelevant topic/exercise for a rugby teams training camp

 

[Pieter Steph du Teague]

No.

You're not offering any reason for which people who eat meat might reasonably be able to refuse to kill something they would otherwise eat.

Morality is based on reason - not "just because".

Yes I did, I quite clearly explained that morals don't need a logical base, people believe what they believe and do what they do. I've also given examples but you don't seem to accept them so I'll give another. I have a friend who's s*** scared of sharks. We went to the beach and he didn't want to go in the water due to being afraid of sharks. I live in Devon, so of course there aren't any sharks so it was stupid and illogical for him to be scared, but he was, and we accepted that and didn't make him go in the water. Of course that's not a situation of morals necessarily, but it does showcase how people don't need reason or logic to not want to do something, and if they don't want to do that, and it's not in any way going to be to the detriment of anyone else, then why make them do it?

 

[ncurd]

I think if your killing a living creature for the first time there is a degree of mental preperation for the act before you have to do it. The length of which can very from indivdual to indivdual and the creature (squatting a spider as opposed to fluffy the rabit).

Having had to kill birds the cat has dragged in half alive I know I'm capable but it doesn't make it easy thing to do. That said if I was doing anything of this nature I'd want to know before I began the course what it entailed to mentally prepare myself for it.

This all said there's a huge amount of speculation of where and when the players were asked to do this and how much pressure was put on them. All of which varies my opinion greatly. So I'm trying to not really comment on this indivdual case.

I do find hypocritical people aren't prepared to kill for their food but my wife would refuse and immediately become a vegetarian if she were asked. This is a personal opinion though and I can see why people might have an issue.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Wonder how Cotter would have reacted if one of them had simply said "No" and stuck to it. To me, that would have been far more impressive than just caving in to peer pressure.

I was thinking the same thing. If the tale has anything at all to do with the truth Id have respected Gray more if he'd said he didn't want to do it and would pass on the meal.