The Times :
Racing 92 have postponed their Top 14 game against La Rochelle this weekend due to an outbreak of Covid-19 that casts in doubt the Heineken Champions Cup final against Exeter Chiefs in 16 days’ time.
Racing declared on their website this morning that the club had returned “several” positive Covid-19 tests. It was reported in the French media that this figure was nine. In the French Top-14, the rules are that a game is postponed if a club records three or more positive tests.
The focus immediately turns to the Champions Cup final on Saturday, October 17. However, Saracens will feel uneasy about the situation having played their semi-final against Racing on Saturday.
A decision on whether the Champions Cup final game can go ahead will not be taken until the week of the game, when a match assessment panel will be convened. The panel’s responsibility will be to determine whether it is safe for the final to go ahead.
If it cannot, the question is whether the game can be postponed, which will be decided by a match resolution panel that will search for an alternative date. The competition organisers will do their utmost to stop Exeter — who are in their first European final — being declared champions by default. However, the coronavirus pandemic has created such intense fixture congestion that it is extremely hard to see how a spare weekend can be found for another game, even for one of such stature.
Though the number of Covid-19 positives in the Gallagher Premiership has remained reassuringly low, the same has not been the case in France. Leicester were due to play Castres in the quarter-finals of the Challenge Cup 11 days ago but the game was cancelled 24 hours before kick-off because three Castres players had tested positive. On that occasion, Castres forfeited the game and Leicester went through to the semi-finals.
There have been two rounds of the 2020-21 Top 14 and there has already been one match postponed. Stade Francais were unable to play Bordeaux in the first round due to a Covid-19 outbreak in the Parisian team. Two third-round matches will also be postponed: the Racing game against La Rochelle; and Lyons against Bordeaux because of a Covid-19 outbreak in the Lyons team.
Even though there has been a rapid rise of infections in England, the numbers in the English Premiership have not risen. In the last round of testing, 1,056 individuals were tested and there were five positives, four of them players and one a staff member.
Rob Baxter, the Exeter director of rugby, said that his squad were trying not consider the ramifications of the outbreak at Racing.
“It’s something we’ll have to look at, but the reality is that it’s something we don’t want to think about too much,” he said. “It could be nine players well outside their first-team squad, or four of them could be members of staff and the others are training normally as a group. We are continually telling the players that it’s what they do away from the club that’s the most important thing.
“When you turn up to the club – and I know I have to be a little bit careful here – it’s virtually impossible to catch Covid in the facility because everyone here is being tested regularly. If someone tests positive they’re isolated immediately. Everyone is health checked and temperature checked every day.
“The reality is that Covid only comes in if someone brings it in, so it’s what you do away from the facility that’s important and we’re constantly reminding the players of that. Because as we’ve seen, any little mishap can lead to a big problem.”
Earlier this week Baxter said that he thought the time was approaching when the clubs could cease such a rigorous testing system. He said: “When you look at how few cases are being picked up I don’t think we are far off [having] genuine medical reasons to not continue with the testing.
“I think most clubs would be in agreement that the actual transfer rates even around players who are testing positive are so, so small. I think the argument for continued testing will die away pretty quickly.”
Always a Wasp
Topic: Champions Cup final in doubt after Covid-19 outbreak at Racing 92 (Read 1138 times)