Peter V'Landys, Andrew Abdo and the NRL are preparing for a season with as minimal disruption to COVID, with revelations that 80 per cent of the playing group have now caught the virus.
COVID has run rampant around most of Australia since late last year, with all NRL clubs having their pre-season impacted in one way or another, with players all forced to isolate for seven days after catching the virus.
It has meant training has gone on with skeleton squads at times, however, the NRL is hoping disruptions will be at a minimum and will only consider a break to scheduled matches in extreme circumstances.
The Sydney Morning Herald are reporting the Sydney Roosters are the first club to have every player infected by COVID. The Eels are only a single player away, while other clubs in New South Wales are all north of 60 per cent.
The list looks like this:
Canterbury Bulldogs (95%), Newcastle Knights (95%), Wests Tigers (90%), St George Illawarra Dragons (88%), South Sydney Rabbitohs (88%), Penrith Panthers (65%), Cronulla Sharks (60%), Manly Sea Eagles (60%).
Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V'Landys told the publication that the NRL want as few disruptions as possible.
“We want to ensure that we can adhere to our contracts and have the least amount of disruptions for our fans, which is why we can’t afford to have a whole team catching it,” V’landys told the Herald.
“The thing you have to remember is that when a large number of our players tested positive, it was during the Christmas break and at that time we had none of our protocols or testing regimes in place. We brought forward the Rapid Antigen Testing protocols - the same protocols that we know work because it has been proven through what we have done with Racing NSW the past six months.
“Anyone who comes into the team environment gets tested before they come in. That’s why I’m confident that this will work in rugby league and you won’t have a mass outbreak that infiltrates a club and leaves them struggling to field a team."
It has been widely reported that contingency plans will be put in place, with clubs allowed to field players from outside of their top 30 in the event of a COVID outbreak, while daily testing for players and staff is the hoped plan behind stopping spread at clubs.
My take:
– omicron is highly contagious
– the effects of omicron are much less severe than previous versions of COVID
– most of the people dying have pre-existing conditions like diabetes or heart disease, which NRL players do not have, so any player catching it should not be in fear of his life.
If you accept those three propositions, then you would be drawn to the conclusion that the best thing a club could do is to encourage its players to get omicron now! Get it over with before the season starts.
I conclude that the clubs which have the highest rates for infection/recovery/back to training before the start of the season will be the clubs that suffer the least disruption, and will be the ones that do best.
So, I’m tipping the Roosters to make the Grand Final; with the Bulldogs and Wests being surprise inclusions in the eight. Don’t have any bets on Conulla or Manly to make the eight, and definitely don’t tip the Panthers for another triumph.