ON-GOING Covid issues in the Glasgow Warriors squad has led to Sunday’s 1872 Cup second-leg clash against Edinburgh at the DAM Health Stadium going the same way as Monday’s first leg, with the game being postponed until an unspecified point later in the season.
While news of the postponement has averted a near-farcical spectacle of two depleted teams playing one of their biggest and most important club games of the season in an empty stadium, it is going to create a major headache for tournament organisers URC, as they must now somehow schedule both matches into an already clustered second-half of the season.
The most likely outcome is that both matches will now be scheduled during the Six Nations window, which means both sides being without a raft of key players who will be on international duty.
On the plus side, the two postponed matches were supposed to be played behind closed doors, where it is likely that fans will be allowed to attend the re-arranged matches, assuming the Scottish Government’s current Covid restrictions have been lifted.
Two other URC matches this weekend – Dragons versus Cardiff Blues and Ulster versus Leinster – have also been postponed.
“The URC Medical Advisory Group has liaised with the medical teams at Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh, as well as Public Health Scotland, and deemed that this fixture cannot go ahead as scheduled,” explained a statement from Glasgow Warriors.
“The United Rugby Championship will now consider available dates to reschedule the game.
“Glasgow Warriors continues to support its players that are isolating and are focused on mitigating any further risks to players and staff through its stringent COVID-19 protocols.”
Meanwhile, Edinburgh head coach Mike Blair expressed his concerns about these crucial matches being played during an international window but accepted that desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures.
“Being new in this job, I don’t know how much say in this I’ve got – I would imagine not a huge amount,” he said.
“My bosses and the URC, they’ll tell me when the game is and to best prepare as we can for that day.
“I’d imagine it would be difficult to do in the 6 Nations because ourselves and Glasgow will have 15-20 players involved in that.
“That would make it very difficult – but we’ll just have to wait and see.
“I think we want the games to go ahead and if that’s the viable option then we have to do it.
“But it’s not going to be me who makes this decision.”
Blair returned to the Edinburgh camp on Monday having completed a 10-day isolation period due to being a close contact.
“It was frustrating, it took away the bit I am so passionate about – the hands-on coaching – and meant I had to do a lot of admin stuff, with no excuses not to do it,” he added.
“My family saw more of me, so that was nice, but it wasn’t great and I don’t fancy doing it again.”
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