Northampton boss Chris Boyd does not want a Premiership break due to Covid-19 and says Saints game against London Irish on Sunday is not under threat after a single positive test
Wednesday 30 December 2020 11:08, UK
Northampton director of rugby Chris Boyd believes it is too soon to consider introducing a break to the Gallagher Premiership due to the escalating coronavirus crisis.
Saints will be without three players for Sunday's trip to London Irish after returning one positive from the latest round of testing, with another two members of the squad isolating as part of contact-tracing procedures.
It comes after two of the six round-five games were cancelled because of outbreaks at Leicester and Irish, while two of the previous weekend's Champions Cup games involving English clubs also fell to Covid-19.
Football's Premier League clubs are reportedly discussing whether to take a break from playing next month due to the chaos caused by positive tests and while Boyd believes rugby has yet to reach that point, he admits the situation is highly challenging.
"One weekend is a little over reactionary. If you had two (cancelled games) last weekend, three this weekend and more the next, you might say, 'how are we going to make this work?' Boyd said.
"The critical currency here is energy and we have got to manage that really carefully. Our management treat this as a great challenge; how are we going to come out of this particularly difficult situation with real credit as a club?
"I sense great determination across the medical and professional group. We want to make sure in June we are fit, healthy and on top of the situation. If you are brutally honest, there is not much alternative."
Boyd has revealed there is no threat posed to the clash with Irish by the single case of coronavirus as Northampton look to build on their first win since August after dispatching Worcester on Saturday.
"We actually had our first positive test for a significant number of weeks that came back. And that was from an external source, from a sibling of one of the boys," Boyd said.
"The boys have been really vigilant, the club's been really vigilant. I know you often can't control when these things happen and it's like general society, you let your guard down for a second and one person sneaks into your bubble, you're in trouble. So far we've been pretty decent on it.
"We've gone back and tracked and traced and we will most likely isolate one or two other people because of close contact, but it doesn't put us anywhere near into jeopardy over not being able to put a team on the paddock.
"We've got it under control. We'll probably retest those guys later in the week and that and the result of the testing on Monday will determine whether they come back into our environment."
