English season finale in turmoil as Sale are forced to draft in cover after 16-man outbreak
English rugby was left in chaos last night after sale suffered an outbreak of Covid-19 on the eve of the Premiership’s grandstand finale.
The club’s crucial final- round match against Worcester could now be cancelled after 16 players and a number of staff returned positive test results.
it is the news that every sport has been dreading, with professional clubs undergoing rigorous testing procedures to allow fixtures to go ahead.
league directors granted a 24-hour delay to yesterday’s team announcement, giving sale until midday today to pull together a 23-man matchday squad. The club must now draft in emergency cover, or dip into their academy reserves, as their hopes of reaching the top four were dealt a huge blow.
should sale forfeit the game, which they were expected to win, then Bristol would need j ust one point from their game against london irish to join Exeter, Wasps and Bath in the play-offs.
Worcester do not intend to travel to the AJ Bell stadium until tomorrow morning and are expected to be granted an automatic 20-0 victory if the game is called off.
saracens director of rugby Mark McCall said: ‘i’m not sure what happens next — it would depend on how many players they have available f rom the squad who weren’t in contact with those 16.
‘As soon as you’ve got a positive test, you’ve got to determine who else needs to be isolated right away, depending on the contact with that player who has tested positive.’
The outbreak has also put northampton on red alert, after the two sides met in the Premiership on Tuesday night.
northampton’s analysts were last night reviewing footage to see which of their players had extended contact with the positive cases and would need to isolate. The saints already have just one fit loosehead prop and could find themselves unable to field a team for tomorrow’s game against gloucester.
Bath director of rugby stuart hooper said: ‘All the documentation is around whether you have available players to fulfil a fixture. There are conversations that happen around the safety of a game but nothing we’ve had to deal with yet, so i don’t know where that goes to.
‘There are giant ifs, buts and maybes, so let’s see what happens. We have competed hard all the way, though, and we have to keep on doing that.
‘if you go to any club, the training environments are different. They are incredibly safe and all the checks are done. But it is something that is there, it is real.’
The latest screening programme results, from september 22, revealed five positive cases from 1,056 tests throughout the league.
The results from this week’s tests will be announced today.