Contact sport, rugby is a sport at risk for the spread of Covid-19.

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Rémy Gabalda / AFP

  • After the premature end of the 2019-2020 season, frozen in March due to Covid-19, the 2020-2021 fiscal year begins this weekend.

  • The championship could be punctuated by postponements of meetings due to cases of coronavirus in the workforce.

  • But professional clubs need to play, in front of the public, so as not to go out of business.

And here it is again.

This weekend, with the first day of the Top 14, the best rugby players in France will enter a long tunnel to continue the championship, the final stages of the 2019-2020 European Cup, the autumn tour of the XV of France, the Coupe d 'Europe 2020-2021… Well, normally.

“It seems overloaded, but we do not know if there are not weekends when we will have to stay at home, tempers Charles Ollivon, captain of Toulon and the Blues.

We sail a little on sight.

"

French rugby even looks like a frail skiff plunged into a fog called Covid-19, which has spoiled its sight and its life for six months now.

"We need to play"

Only, as Paul Goze, the president of the National League (LNR), recalled on Monday, the resumption of the Top 14 is "vital for the survival of professional rugby", even if the gauge of 5,000 people, derogatory in the "green" departments (to the great happiness of Clermont, Brive or La Rochelle), the budget of clubs which depend more than 60% on the presence of the public.

“We need to play, asserts Ugo Mola, the manager of the Stade Toulousain, expected by the ASM on Sunday night.

Ultimately, whatever the result!

I'm not even talking about economics, but general, mental, societal health.

"

It would therefore be a question of sending a symbolic signal, but strong, and to challenge the coronavirus which has plagued the treasury, the infirmaries and the preparation of many clubs.

The prize goes to the Stade Français, whose match that was to oppose the Union Bordeaux-Bègles, this Friday at the opening of the ball, has already been postponed.

No new case in Toulouse, the match in Clermont in front of 10,000 people via @ 20minutesSport https://t.co/AYGE8PsTYI

- 20 Minutes Sport (@ 20minutesSport) September 2, 2020

But Toulouse, long spared, also declared three cases in less than a week, before a "return to normal" that will have to be confirmed during the tests on Friday, two days before the trip to Auvergne, to avoid another postponement.

While waiting for a lighter protocol?

“When you isolated your positive cases with rules, why not play with your physically healthy players?

asks Mola, whose group has not trained in full since August 25.

We will put young people, but let's play!

“Faced with Covid-19, the world of sport, and the whole world, is in suspense.

So what about rugby, which could have been invented by a mad scientist eager to see the virus spread, with its tackles and its "little piles" ...

No more risk of transmission in rugby

“We attended meetings where we were told that we should not train to make scrums or rucks, and not to have contact, ironically Mola.

But the essence of our sport is to rub a bit.

It is therefore perhaps more at risk than others.

"

Also, since it is necessary to resume, let's start again ... "We do not project ourselves by telling ourselves that the season will stop or not because of the Covid, assures the Parisian rear Kylan Hamdaoui, at forced rest this weekend after his club was forced to cancel all its friendlies.

We prepare normally.

And we cross our fingers.

"It is not yet sure that there is a cascade of postponements, remarked Paul Goze Monday, without being able to draw the line in his words between conviction and Coué method.

We hope there won't be too many.

If this is the case, administrative solutions can be taken, in addition to the delay of matches on weekdays.

"

The National Rugby League still calls for help from the government https://t.co/QhlFAWWZjw

- 20 Minutes (@ 20Minutes) August 31, 2020

Asked about the mysterious "administrative solutions" mentioned by his boss, the DG of the LNR Emmanuel Eschalier hit very far in touch, like Anthony Bouthier against England last February, and referred to the management committee on September 22 and 23: " It is premature to discuss this scenario today.

"

Urios and the English method

Two weeks ago, Christophe Urios, UBB manager, had a radical idea, straight from across the Channel, where the clubs decided to resume and end their 2019-2020 season at all costs, with the difference the French.

"What the English have decided, namely that if a team is not able to field 25 players because of the Covid-19, it has zero points, that's a good thing," said one big mouths of tricolor rugby.

Will Urios be followed, if the health situation were to deteriorate and the postponements to pile up?

To have.

In any case, it is promised: faced with this illegible situation, we will never make fun of a rugby player who ensures "take the matches one after the other".

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