RUGBY'S NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS
BATH MATCH IS OFF AFTER COVID HITS LONDON IRISH
LONDON Irish’s trip to Bath became the second festive fixture cancelled due to Covid cases as Premiership Rugby’s nightmare before Christmas continued yesterday.
Because of a ‘small number’ of positives in the Exiles camp, the Boxing Day match follows Newcastle v Leicester in being called off.
Bath, who have now had two games cancelled in a row after their Scarlets Champions Cup match was off last weekend, are expected to be handed four points, and Irish two, under the new league regulations.
Irish boss Declan Kidney (below) said: ‘I’m really disappointed for the players as they’ve acted professionally, following all the relevant guidelines, but this is the situation we find ourselves in as the country continues to try to navigate its way through the pandemic.’
The four other games — Harlequins against Bristol, Northampton versus Worcester, Sale facing Wasps and Gloucester’s trip to Exeter — are set to go ahead.
The Chiefs have lined up extra testing today to make sure they can play, following a major outbreak last week which saw their
European Cup trip to Toulouse axed. Their boss Rob Baxter said that, while he expected his side to return Covid free after ‘double figures’ of cases at Sandy Park last week, the league should be braced for more tumult. ‘There’s a huge part of the country in higher tier levels because of the spread of Covid — we’re very fortunate to be playing sport,’ said Baxter, who will pick some players who have not trained having been in isolation. ‘If to maintain the discipline that’s required in the country it means the odd game of rugby doesn’t happen, then it doesn’t happen. That’s how it should be.
‘We’re actually up on all our testing beyond that required by PRL. That has enabled us to get on top of this scenario very quickly and we are fully expecting zero positives. Anyone who plays against Gloucester will have passed tests on Monday and Thursday.’
Exeter drew criticism from Glasgow, who they played the week before their outbreak which forced the Warriors to call off their La Rochelle match on contact-tracing grounds.
The Scots were worried that Exeter’s subs did not wear masks and were not taking guidelines seriously but Baxter hit back at those claims.
‘If they want to publicly make comment and sling mud around that’s entirely up to them,’ said the Chiefs director of rugby.
‘There’s numerous comments I could make about the things I witnessed among the Glasgow players and staff, what they allowed to happen in their areas, their changing room which they were in charge of once we handed it over to them, but it doesn’t help anybody to talk like that.
‘I’m a little bit bemused by this. Anything they wanted to address could have been addressed privately.
‘Some of the issues they’ve addressed publicly are blatantly not true.’
Exeter have not given up hope in the European Cup, despite their 28- 0 forfeit against Toulouse. ‘The reality is we can only sit here and talk about trying to target 10 points from the last two games,’ Baxter added.
‘ We’ve got to try to deny Toulouse points while we gain our own and hope that some points get shipped by teams above us.’
Meanwhile, South Africa’s stars will prepare for next summer’s British & Irish Lions tour in an ambitious 16-team, two-conference ‘Rainbow Cup’ competition with the European Pro14 teams, played across the two hemispheres between April and June.
Springbok captain Siya Kolisi’s Stormers as well as the Sharks, Bulls and Lions will join the league after it concludes its season early with a final on March 27.