Can the Top 14 go to the end with this health protocol?

Players and referees before the La Rochelle - Toulon match.

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• Five Top 14 games have already been postponed in just four league days.

• Some leaders want to come back to the systematic postponement of matches based on three positive cases and point to the dangers of weekday matches.

• For the moment, the medical commission does not intend to return to this figure and recalls that the virality is much stronger in rugby than in football.

One more.

On Tuesday, the National Rugby League announced the postponement of the match between Oyonnax and Biarritz counting for the 6th day of ProD2 due to cases of Covid-19 among players from Ain.

Another postponement.

In Top 14, we are five in four days.

Only the second day of the championship has been able to be played in its entirety so far.

Disturbing.

So in recent days, the little music around a health protocol that would be "too strict" is being heard more and more, with statements from presidents, coaches or consultants.

Spearheading, we find Laurent Marti in

The president of Union Bordeaux-Bègles has just seen his match against ASM postponed after that of the 1st day against the Stade Français: “The health protocol is not adapted.

He's too harsh.

We must stop systematically testing healthy players.

Only test those who show symptoms.

Our players take PCR tests once or twice a week and also undergo a serological test once a month.

The protocol must be lightened.

We only listen to the doctors and they open the umbrella exaggeratedly.

"

The NRL Office today validated several changes to the COVID-19 medical protocol in force for professional rugby championships 📄➡️ https://t.co/juBvVdeaRw

⬇️⬇️⬇️ pic.twitter.com/4qy6gqxyQJ

- National Rugby League (@LNRofficiel) September 8, 2020

In support, he can count on a reinforcement of choice and weight.

Sébastien Chabal, consultant for the Canal Rugby Club today: “The clubs have shown that they are responsible.

We must give them a little freedom.

It's good to protect the health of the players and it's done pretty well, and it's because it's well done that it needs to be relaxed.

If the clearing is not clean enough, the Bordeaux president can also count on Thomas Lombard.

For the General Manager of Stade Français, "it's very difficult to contemplate the rest with serenity" while yet "all the players in the Top 14 and Pro D2 have the fierce desire to play as many matches as possible.

"

Weekday games, another danger?

One rule particularly annoys them.

If they more or less understand that their players are tested regularly, especially on Mondays in the event of Covid-19 detected before a match the previous weekend.

If they can skip the fact of training in small groups of ten people, technical supervision included, for seven days in case of positive people in the professional group.

They strongly question the systematic postponement of matches from three cases of Covid-19.

"It is from this threshold that the virus is deemed to be actively circulating," recalls Bernard Dusfour, chairman of the NRL medical commission.

This threshold, they would like it to be increased.

Jean François Fonteneau, the president of Agen, announces the possibility of going up to five.

Behind this desire to make the protocol more flexible, there is above all the question of the timetable.

And the other side of the coin pointed out by Sébastien Chabal: "It is a protocol to protect the health of the players, but when the clubs will have three, four or five games to play late and it will be necessary to play several games per week , players' health will no longer be protected.

»At the moment T, there are only two completely free dates in the season (the weekends of November 1 and May 1).

Then it will be necessary to add duplicates on the dates of the XV of France this fall or during the next tournament of the VI Nations in 2021. Another solution, not to play the European Cup to release dates or therefore to play during the week.

But the NRL is not there yet.

For the moment, no relaxation on the rule of three positive cases

This grumbling, the medical commission of the league heard it well.

She is not deaf to hear, recalls its president Bernard Dusfour at

“I am not here to argue and I understand them.

I don't blame them.

I understand their anguish.

"But for all that, there is no question of moving:" Each time we have had three cases, there were systematically others behind.

The balance is very unstable.

We don't want to have a second French Stadium (a cluster of 25 people that took place in August).

“Since the medical commission still had to manage a half-Stade Français in Castres (15 cases of Covid-19).

Between the players affected by Covid-19 and the injured, 20 players were absent when training resumed this morning at Levezou.

Update on the situation of Castres Olympique ⬇️ https://t.co/xpY27l0XCS

- Castres Olympique (@CastresRugby) October 13, 2020

The relaxations have so far been done at the margins.

For example, Bernard Dusfour and his colleagues decided this week that a positive but asymptomatic player could resume collective training after ten days and no longer 14 as since the start of the season.

But for the Toulouse doctor, it will be impossible to get closer to the measures taken in football (it is enough to have 20 negative players to play) as long as the epidemic is there.

"You have to understand that we are not in the same sport: in football, they do not scrum and do not pile up on each other, as far as I know!

" Not false.

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