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By MikeGC
#15150
Aug 12 (Reuters) - Five players from English rugby league side Hull FC tested positive for COVID-19 following their Super League match against Salford Red Devils and have been quarantined, the club and the Rugby Football League (RFL) said in a statement on Tuesday.


https://www.eurosport.co.uk/rugby/_sto7 ... tory.shtml
By Olyy
#15154
Jeeze,
As much as I'm really looking forward to the season starting back up it does sort of feel like a ticking time bomb.



Also, reading about the Hull FC/Salford game - they said the analysts are going through to see which players had "prolonged contact" with the infected. Surely if there's a bunch of infected players running around the pitch everyone should be in isolation regardless of if they held them down at the play-the-ball or whatever. Seems reckless.
SimonG liked this
By H's D
#15170
Quite, twice weekly I think , but testing doesn't stop the virus, and a single negative test isn't a reliable indicator.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/53746240
The very practicality of keeping a Rugby Union Squad healthy and covid-free during this covid pandemic whilst training 2 or 3 times and playing twice a week must surely be put into question. Six players positive in one squad !
Will it prove even possible to complete the remaining fixtures?
With 4 clubs involved in each week's matches and 40 plus players , physios coaches etc in each club's squad one has to recognise that all it could take is one weak link to break for a significant spike of 2-3 players within the squad.
The bit that I found particularly alarming
The RFL is set to analyse Sunday's game to determine how many players will now be required to self-isolate as a result of prolonged contacts with the infected players, as part of procedures agreed with Public Health England.
Scrums have been eradicated from the game for the rest of this season to reduce the number of hot-spot contamination risks on the field. But tackles involving at least two defenders are considered a risk. Any player involved in lengthy contact in a tackle with a player who has tested positive will have to self-isolate.
Presumably the same sort of agreement with procedures to assess close contact within games has also been struck between the RFU and PHE!
If the Premiership returns WITH scrums, mauls and lineouts......how on earth are they NOT involving prolonged close contact (in comparison with mere tackles and restarts in scrumless RL) over the course of a game?

One hooker/ prodigious tackler/jackling groundhog tests positive - how many would that involve isolating?

Dime's excellent plan to have two different pretty mutually exclusive matchday 23s with forwards and backs also training separately (so at least 4 separate training groups?) is a potentially excellent mitigator against covid spread in training but nevertheless the whole basis of the return looks increasingly dodgy.......
Even more so if a couple of Salford Reds players also test positive over the course of the next 10 days. :sad:
Away from the the ground will all our players be shielding between matches, as far as possible?
By DavenportSharky
#15171
Have felt this for a while now. This has always been a bold plan with no leeway to rearrange fixtures further. One significant outbreak will see government pressure to stop playing again. Although the danger to young adults is relatively small it’s the message to the general population that they will be worried about. Having said that the resulting pulmonary fibrosis from Covid could make a significant impact on performance for elite athletes which all concerned will want to avoid.
By H's D
#15176
Agreed but once it's beyond a single "playboy"club you know it's not just a single gross error on their part.
The 6 ...
are from a similar sized squad of gritty pros (GOK how many SF have! )
are in the UK, in the NW and under the influence our regional incidence of Covid. (Trafford 1445/million active symptomatic cases. Hull 1495/million. Todays Covid joinzoe app figures)
Moreover they actually played at the AJB on Sunday! Fumigation anyone?
By JohnJ of HM
#15179
H's D wrote:
Wed Aug 12, 2020 12:49 pm
Agreed but once it's beyond a single "playboy"club you know it's not just a single gross error on their part.
The 6 ...
are from a similar sized squad of gritty pros (GOK how many SF have! )
are in the UK, in the NW and under the influence our regional incidence of Covid. (Trafford 1445/million active symptomatic cases. Hull 1495/million. Todays Covid joinzoe app figures)
Moreover they actually played at the AJB on Sunday! Fumigation anyone?
I think they are playing all the games at Headingly. So not at the AJB.
By Van Cannonball
#15180
I guess the reason I’m not so worried is that football had done this and not had any real number of cases.

The union clubs have been training for 2 months and only had the odd case.

I don’t see that an actual match creates so much additional risk, especially when the likelihood from testing shows that players don’t have it (recognising that won’t be 100% accurate)
By H's D
#15191
fair enough but I expect quite a few supporters from HULL RFC were saying exactly the same thing about 3 weeks ago.......
.......the more people/bubbles you come into close contact with the greater the risk seems more salient to me....a veritable ever-enlarging daisy chain!

Four people have tested positive from the 989 players and staff involved in the latest round of coronavirus testing at Premiership clubs. Of the four positive tests, one is a player and three are members of staff.

Notable that Salford and Hull have each been forced to cancel/postphone their next games. Am I correct in thinking both would have recorded 0-20 defeats under RFU rules, if unable to create a matchday 23, had they been playing Union?
Last edited by H's D on Wed Aug 12, 2020 9:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
By Olyy
#15195
H's D wrote:
Wed Aug 12, 2020 5:38 pm
Notable that Salford and Hull have each been forced to cancel/postphone their next games. Am I correct in thinking both would have recorded 0-20 defeats under RFU rules, if unable to create a matchday 23, had they been playing Union?
That's my understanding of it - it would only be if there were scheduled to face each other that a draw would be awarded
By H's D
#15197
Let's hope against hope that every other Premiership club we play has strong stemmed Daisies then! Such factors could easily determine the top 4!
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By poyntonshark
#15212
I don't believe that the 20-0 defeat is a mandatory punishment, just a possible one.
By ale shark
#15282
poyntonshark wrote:
Thu Aug 13, 2020 3:29 am
I don't believe that the 20-0 defeat is a mandatory punishment, just a possible one.
Is 20-0 win worth 4 points or 5 points?
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By MikeGC
#15286
ale shark wrote:
Fri Aug 14, 2020 7:16 am
poyntonshark wrote:
Thu Aug 13, 2020 3:29 am
I don't believe that the 20-0 defeat is a mandatory punishment, just a possible one.
Is 20-0 win worth 4 points or 5 points?
.
It occurs to me that perhaps this is designed to be the equivalent of 4 unconverted tries and therefore 5 points to the side that fields a team.
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