Shambolically late decision was correct amid call-offs

In the end, it really was as inevitable as it seemed when Cardiff woke up to a crisp but beautiful morning.

Overnight, the news had come in that golf’s PGA Tour cancelled their flagship Players Championship after one round and April’s Masters was being postponed.

We already knew English football’s Premier League were meeting and with players and prominent head coaches now having the virus, they were likely to call a halt to their season.

Formula One’s Australian Grand Prix caved, tennis was halted.

At midday, the SFA and SPFL put the brakes on Scottish football, including tomorrow’s Old Firm game.

Two hours earlier, the Welsh Rugby Union had released a statement reiterating (as they had on a daily basis since the weekend) the WalesScotland Six Nations game would proceed at 2.15pm today.

Their first statement insisted medical advice they were getting from the Welsh Assembly and “medical experts” from Public Health Wales suggested a 75,000 sell-out at the Principality Stadium carried no risk.

It seemed unbelievable at the time, and as event after event fell, it looked even worse.

Wales conducted their captain’s run at the Principality Stadium at 11am with no hint of a change, although their captain Alun Wyn Jones’ press briefing had been cancelled.

But as media waited for Scotland’s 2pm captain’s run, we watched the wires as event after event continued to fall.

With Scottish and English football postponing, Europe going behind closed doors and all of America’s main sports shut down, it seemed the full house at the Principality Stadium would be the only mass gathering at any sporting event this weekend anywhere in the world.

At 2pm, a WRU official came into the media room to say the game was off. We were just 24 hours and 15 minutes away from kick-off.

Already, thousands of Scottish fans were arriving in Cardiff.

Had a reasonable decision been made earlier in the week to move all of the Six Nations’ Super Saturday to October, they might have been saved the trouble and at least some of the expense.

However shambolically belated it was, the right decision was made.

Alun Wyn Jones’ press briefing was cancelled