BATH RULE: DON’T BE A COVID CHARLIE
England star Ewels reveals West Country club’s vow not to have big nights out and become covidiots as they chase title
ENGLAND star Charlie Ewels has revealed how title-chasing Bath have turned to peer pressure to guard against covidiots.
The West Country outfit are two wins from becoming English champions for the first time since 1996.
But with infection rates on the rise in university towns and 18,000 students enrolled in the spa city, Ewels (right) is only too aware of the danger.
Ahead of tomorrow’s Premiership semi-final at Exeter, xeter, the Bath captain lifted the lid id on the ‘rule’ devised by him and nd his team- mates to avoid being plunged into Covid hell.
Ewels said: “We have had d conversations as a playing g group about how one of us s could pick up the virus and d it spreads and costs us.
“That is the world we are living in but the rule which h you want to check yourself on is, would you be willing to stand up in front of the team if you test positive and spread it around the team and say, ‘ This is what I did’.
“If it’s because you go to oa a supermarket to buy dinner r and you pick it up off a shopping basket, then you would happily stand there and say that.
“If it’s, ‘I was on a night out t with a load of uni students’, then you probably wouldn’t be willing to look at your mates and say that to them. So that is the rule we put in place and that is how we have operated since.”
Bristol say they may go to the extreme of shutting their team away from the outside world to ensure coronavirus does not sabotage their Double ambitions. The Bears have a Premiership sem semi- final at Wasps to tomorrow and a European C Challenge Cup final against Toulon a week today.
Boss Pat Lam ( below, l left) ft) is determined his club’s fate will be decided on the pitch, not off it and said: “If Covid becomes a higher risk in society that certainly would be an option.
“Spending 10 weeks in a hotel was talked about when we came back from lockdown. That period of time becomes difficult but two weeks could be an option if that is what it takes.
The scale of the Covid problem affecting the top flight of the English game was underlined l a st night when Premiership Rugby revealed 31 positive cases from 441 players and staff tested.