Cockerill among three to miss flight to Italy
Head coach Richard Cockerill and two others have been forced to miss their flight to Italy to take on Zebre in Parma in the PRO14 due to a delayed test result.
Cockerill, fullback Blair Kinghorn and a physio were all forced to stay behind in Edinburgh as a result of the delay and will miss the match. They have all since tested negative.
A statement on the club website reads: "...the results for the Head Coach, player and physiotherapist were delayed on Friday morning leaving their Covid-19 status unknown, meaning they were not in a position to fly on the team’s charter flight. All other test results were negative.
"Their tests have subsequently been completed and were confirmed to be negative."
Currently, Scottish Rugby operates a twice-weekly testing regime for both their professional teams.
“We continue to take our Covid protocols extremely seriously and, while we have returned two sets of negative test results this week, the uncertainty created by Richard, Blair and our physio’s delayed results meant we took the decision to not put the wider group at any potential risk and they did not travel," said Edinburgh Rugby’s Managing Director, Douglas Struth.
"With support from Scottish Rugby the club applies stringent Covid-19 measures for the safety of our players, coaches and wider performance team to both protect the health of our employees and in acknowledgment of the privileged position in which we operate.”
Cockerill remains in contact with the team. The team are looking to bounce back from the loss to Glasgow Warriors in the 1872 Cup last weekend.
“This is obviously a very important match for us and our efforts to climb the table at the back end of the season," said Cockerill this week.
“We were disappointed to lose by the narrowest of margins away against Glasgow last time out and have once again picked a strong side that we believe can go out there and get the win we need.
“Like us, we’re anticipating Zebre will have their international players available to them before the Six Nations gets underway, so we’re expecting a tough match between two good sides.”
Latest Comments
It’s a good, timely wake up call for NZ Rugby (seem to be a few of them lately!) - sort out the bureaucratic nonsense at board level. We can’t expect to stay the number one option without keeping fans/players engaged. We’ve obviously been bleeding players to league for years but can’t let the floodgates open (although I think this headline is hyperbolic as it’s a result of a recent Warriors pathways system where they are tracking things more closely) Understand the need to focus boys on rugby if they’re at a proud rugby school too, don’t think it’s harsh at all re Barakat in Hamilton. Reward the committed players with squad positions. An elite 1st XV system in NZ has done more for league than they even realise, think it’s good to protect our game further.
Go to commentsDon’t pay a blind bit of notice to Lukie… he likes the sound of his own voice and is always looking for something controversial to say. He has been banging on about Leinster's defensive system all season like he knows something Jacques Nienebar doesn’t. Which is the reason why he didn’t apply for the job obviously
Go to comments