Why is Wales v Scotland being played when other sporting events are being called off?
SO, here’s the question. Why is Wales v Scotland going ahead this weekend when so many other sporting events have been postponed?
It’s something a lot of people are asking right now amid the decision to “play on” at the Principality Stadium tomorow.
With the coronavirus outbreak escalating rapidly, there has been mounting speculation in recent days over whether the game would go ahead as planned.
This weekend’s two other Six Nations matches – Italy-England and France-Ireland – have both been postponed, probably until October.
On top of that, the Guinness PRO14 season has been suspended indefinitely, while Wales’ football international against the USA this month has been called off.
They are just two ways the virus spread is causing disruption to sports events, with Manchester City’s Champions League clash against a quarantined Real Madrid being postponed, three Leicester players self-isolating after showing symptoms of COVID-19, while Uefa is said to be calling an emergency meeting to potentially postpone Euro 2020 by a year.
And yet we are ploughing ahead with the Scotland game. Why?
Well, essentially it’s a case of the Welsh Rugby Union following precisely the instructions from the qualified agencies and governments.
Their stance, all along, is they would take the advice of the health experts and act on what government require them to do.
So, what has the government said? At Welsh Government level, Minister for Health Vaughan Gething has been pretty clear. He told a press conference yesterday afternoon that the game will go ahead. So there’s no instruction for a postponement there.
It was then a case of waiting on the UK Government, and their policy was outlined at a separate press conference by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The message from him was the UK
Government was considering banning major sporting fixtures, but that is not happening immediately.
“There is little medical reason at the moment to ban such events,” he said.
“The scientific advice is it has little effect on the spread, but it does place a burden on other public services.
“So, we will be keeping that under review. We are keeping it up our sleeve, but it’s important to get the timing right.”
The UK Government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance then explained the thinking in more detail.
He said cancelling large sports events was “not a major way to tackle this epidemic”.
“On average, one person infects two or three others,” he said.
“You therefore have a very low probability of infecting a large number of people in a stadium and a rather higher probability of infecting people very close to you.
“And that means that most of the transmission actually tends to take place with friends and colleagues and those in close environments – and not in the big environments.”
So, there you have it: that’s the expert opinion the WRU are acting upon and that’s why tomorrow’s game is going ahead as planned.
In the same way the unions in Ireland, Italy and France have followed the advice of their authorities in cancelling Six Nations matches, so the WRU is following the advice from the Welsh and UK governments in carrying on with the fixture.
What about other sporting events? Now people are legitimately asking why that’s the case and yet the PRO14, which features games in Wales, has been suspended?
Well, the rationale there is that three of the competing countries – Italy, Ireland and Scotland – have imposed restrictions on sporting events.
In Italy, all sport has been cancelled. In Ireland, all indoor gatherings of 100 or more people and outdoor gatherings of 500 or more have been cancelled.
And in Scotland, mass gatherings of more than 500 people are banned from Monday.
So, given that situation, there is little way the league could continue, not to mention the issues with crossborder travel.
People will also be asking why different countries are responding in different ways, notably so in terms of
Scotland, as opposed to England and Wales.
Prime Minister Johnson addressed that, saying Scotland “do have particular issues with the resilience of their public services”.
Now people will no doubt raise an eyebrow at gatherings of more than 500 being cancelled in Scotland and yet Scottish fans being able to head to Cardiff to be part of an estimated 74,000 crowd at the Principality Stadium.
But that’s the reality of different policy applying in different locations.
And, as it stands, the policy covering Wales is that major sporting events can go ahead as planned and that’s what the WRU is acting upon.
As one Union source told the Western Mail: “We are merely a rugby entity. The health experts make the call on this. Our policy is to do exactly as instructed by the qualified agencies and governments.”
So, on we go.