Outbreak of mumps sees game postponed

A TOP Welsh Premiership rugby match was called off hours before kick-off yesterday after an outbreak of mumps in the Swansea RFC team.

The Whites’ game against Aberavon was postponed on medical advice.

A Swansea RFC statement on social media: “After taking medical advice, due to an outbreak of illness throughout the squad today’s game vs Aberavon has been postponed. Thank you to Aberavon RFC for their support and cooperation.”

Swansea refused to give any further details, but Aberavon head coach Jason Hyatt confirmed the match was postponed at 10am, adding: “It is frustrating from a playing perspective because we had picked an exciting side and were looking to build on two good wins. But from a player safety point of view it was exactly the right call.

“We got the phone call at 10am when Swansea confirmed to us that two of their players had been diagnosed with suffering from the mumps. I gave our players the day off and told them to get ready for next Friday’s game against Newport.

“It isn’t the first time we’ve had a mumps warning this season. We had a call after our game at the start of last month against Carmarthen Quins that their hooker had contracted mumps.

“We immediately took the advice of our medical officer and we cancelled training for our players on the following Tuesday just to make sure we could isolate any incidents if we had any.

“Thankfully, we didn’t suffer, but there seems to be a lot of it about in our region. I’ve got a son at Swansea University and there have been a number of cases there.”

Five cases of suspected mumps were investigated by Public Health Wales at Swansea University in October last year, one week after a cluster emerged at Cardiff University. Newport County were hit by mumps last month when midfielder Taylor Maloney contracted the contagious disease. He was forced to miss a couple of games and other players were also affected.