Craig Peter Hamilton, who joined Edinburgh from Border Reivers in the summer of 2007, is an athletic, rangy player who provides a useful contrast to the meatier second row options available to Rob Moffat.

Hamilton, who has also played for Glasgow and Newcatle Falcons, won his first Scotland cap on the 2004 summer tour to Australia, coming on as a replacement in the second Test. The cap was reward for sterling performances against Queensland Reds, New South Wales Country, and New South Wales which led him to be heralded as the ‘find of the tour’. He represented Scotland under-21 in the 2000 SANZAR tournament, starting against Tonga and coming on as a replacement against South Africa and Argentina.

He started in all three games that Scotland A played in the Barclays Churchill Cup in Canada in June 2006, and he continued in that team five months later for the Perth match against Australia A.

He made two replacement appearances for Scotland A in the 2007 Churchill Cup in England. Craig also represented Scottish Students, starting their game against French Students at Inverleith in March 2002. Craig, a former pupil of Stranraer Academy, was originally with the Wigtownshire club and latterly West of Scotland before crossing the border to study in Newcastle and join the city rugby club, where he played alongside fellow Scot and second row, stalwart Stuart Grimes. They were reunited at the Reivers in season 2006-2007, and made their competitive debuts together against Connacht at Netherdale. Craig moved north to Glasgow in the summer of 2005, before switching to the Reivers a year later.

While with Wigtownshire, Craig played for Scotland under-18 and went with the Glasgow Thistles’ 1999 development squad to New Zealand.