Chiefs all clear in Covid scare
The Chiefs are in the clear after being asked by the Southern DHB to undergo Covid-19 testing. In a stressful 24 hours for all involved in the upcoming Super Rugby Pacific season, the Chiefs were required to undergo PCR testing after seven players of the Moana Pasifika team returned positive tests.
The Chiefs played a pre-season game against the competition’s newest team last weekend and shared a flight to the Super Rugby Queenstown bubble with them earlier this week.
Chiefs skipper Sam Cane said it made for a troublesome night for members of the team staff but most of the players were confident they would be cleared of any infection.
“I wasn’t too worried about it personally,” Cane said yesterday. “We had these super thick masks on that made it particularly hard to breathe on the flight, so the virus would’ve had to have done pretty well to get through that.
“And despite knowing some of the boys, no one really stopped and chatted to each other or fist bumped or anything like that.
“We kept our distance at each end of the plane.
“It just highlights sometimes it can be down to a bit of luck, so we just have to make sure we stay very vigilant with the protocols.
“I suppose it helps being down here, with a lot of the things we’re doing outside of rugby outdoors — jumping in the lake post-training and things like that to keep a balance between rugby and having a bit of fun and downtime.”
It has been a staccato pre-season for the teams and New Zealand Rugby in planning around how to get the season going despite the threat of the Omicron variant. However, at this stage, Moana Pasifika’s opening match against the Blues is the only one impacted, with the fixture postponed on Friday night.
Chiefs coach Clayton McMillan admitted the pre-season process had been disruptive but had no complaints over how his team were poised heading into the opening round.
“We’re well aware of the challenges around Covid-19, and Queenstown has been really organised, it’s been a really good set-up, so for the most part, it’s just been business as usual,” McMillan said.
“I would like to think we’ve been keeping a pretty tight bubble right through our whole pre-season. We were on the same plane as Moana Pasifika on the way down, so the Southern DHB requested that we all get tested.
“We all went through that process [on Friday]; everybody in our whole squad and management have come back clear, so we’re really a little bit lucky.
“We feel for Moana Pasifika. It’s a big year and having a setback is disappointing for them. We wish them well in their recovery and hopefully they get back on the field quickly.”