Health must be prioritised as France match looms
FRANCE’s announcement yesterday that they have had no more positive Covid cases in their camp has to make Sunday’s game with Scotland that bit more likely to go ahead. The Six Nations will announce this evening whether the match at the Stade de France will proceed as scheduled, but in the absence of further discouraging evidence they will remain very keen to give it the green light.
Or at least, that much appeared clear from the Championship’s Testing Oversight Group (TOG) statement on Monday which explained that tonight would be D-Day. By that point 10 French players, including captain Charles Ollivon and scrum-half Antoine Dupont, had tested positive.
Later that evening, Baptiste Pesenti made it 11, but he had only been called up as a replacement earlier that day and had apparently not even got as far as the Marcoussis national training centre before his result was made public. Pesenti joins the list of unavailable players, of course, but because he was with his club Pau when the test was carried out, the TOG need not count his case as evidence of a deepening health problem within the French squad.
And if 10 or 11 positive tests on Monday night (not to mention four within France’s backroom staff) were not enough for the TOG to decide to postpone the game, the same number two days later will surely not persuade them to do so either. France’s head coach Fabien Galthie, who has himself tested positive, will still be without some of his best players, of course. But a country with as many professional players as France will still be able to field a competitive side – as they showed in the final of the Autumn Nations Cup last year when they fielded a second string but took a full-strength England to extra time.
Yet even if we decide that the game can go ahead without the Championship’s sporting integrity being adversely affected, how sure are we that it will be safe to do so? The TOG could rule tonight that the game will go on, but what if more French positives are recorded on Friday or Saturday? And even if there are no more positives, how confident can we be that there will be no risk at all to the Scotland squad in playing opponents who have clearly been in some form of contact with positive cases?
Gregor Townsend’s squad for this game includes some of the Glasgow players who had to isolate earlier this season after being deemed close contacts during a Champions Cup match of Exeter players who later tested positive (four Warriors players subsequently tested positive themselves).
It is fair to presume that they would rather not repeat the experience.
The SRU’s preference for the match to go ahead as scheduled is totally understandable, and when they expressed that preference in a statement released on Monday evening, at least they had the good grace to add the words “should it be medically safe to do so”. They are also clearly concerned that if the game is postponed this week, they will be dragooned by the Six Nations into playing it next weekend instead.
That would not only allow at least some of the asymptomatic French players to return from isolation and play, it would also make it far more difficult for Townsend to secure the release of his England-based players who are due to play for their clubs then.
But are this weekend or next really the only two options? Is there no political will to consider a date later in the year?
After all, the 2020 Six Nations was not completed until the autumn. Yes, rugby has a crowded calendar and settling on the right date could be a difficult process, but if we really are putting health and safety first, we should at least consider it.
That apparent decision that the game will be either this week or next is one problem. The other is the lack of clarity in the rules about postponements.
Granted, rugby is far from alone in this. There have been cases in Scottish football, for example, when a club with an outbreak of illness – flu or the winter vomiting bug, for instance – has regarded itself as unable to fulfil a fixture only to be told by the authorities that it will have to go ahead.
But the failings of other sports should not be used as an excuse for similar vagueness by a high-profile tournament such as the Six Nations. It is surely perfectly feasible for the Championship to decide on and publish some ground rules concerning postponements. They might be guidelines with caveats attached rather than hard and fast rules, but they would at least offer some evidence to the outside world that the rugby authorities were not merely making it up as they went along.
FINALLY, a word to those Scots who are desperate for the game to be played on Sunday: be careful what you wish for. Even without Dupont, their best player, and Ollivon, their leader, France are more than capable of putting up a decent performance. Scotland should be favourites on Sunday given the number of French absentees, but you can be sure that the home team will certainly not be lacking in motivation.
Is there no will to consider a later date?